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THE        SUBURBAN        SAGE 


UBKAJRT 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAJJTOWKfc 
DAVIS 


THE 


SUBURBAN 


H.C.BUNNER. 


ILLUSTRATED 
BY  C.J.TAYLOR. 


-THE   RUNAWAY    BROWNS," 

by  H.  C.  Bunner,  illustrations  by  C.  J.  Tay- 
lor ;  publishers,  Keppler  &  Schwarzmann. 
The  experiences  of  Paul  Brown  and  his  wife, 
who  escape  a  tame,  adventureless  life,  with  a 
view  of  having  "  things  happen  to  them," 
and  to  this  end  leave  a  pleasant  home  to  be 
gone  a  year  and  a  day,  are  just  the  reading 
for  a  Summer's  afternoon,  and  there  is  still 
enough  of  Summer  in  the  air  to  make  it  en- 
joyable to  its  fullest.  How  the  Browns  fell 
in  with  a  band  of  barn- storming  profession- 
als ;  how  they  became  tin  peddlers ;  how 
they  took  charge  of  a  lone  hotel,  and  how 
they  finally  and  gladly  reached  their  trim 
cottage,  is  told  in  these  clever  and  amusing 
pages,  and  will  bring  more  than  one  hearty 
laugh  even  from  those  unused  to  smile. 

—  N.,  P.  &  S.  Bulletin. 


In  Boards,  $1.00.          In  Paper,  50  Cents. 

All  Booksellers. 
By  Mail,  from  the  Publishers,  an  receipt  of  price. 


THE  SUBURBAN  SAGE. 


THE 
SUBURBAN  SAGE 

Stray  Notes  and  Comments  s 
On  His  Simple  Lije 

BYH'CBUNNER 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 
CJ'TAYLPP 


KEPPLERQ  SCHWARZ/AANN:  PUBLISHERS^ 

PUCK  BUILDING:A/£W- 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORHB& 
DAVI& 


Copyright,  1896,  by  KEPPLER  &  SCHWARZMANN. 


TO 
A.    L.    B. 


Contents. 

Page. 

Mr.  Chedby  on  a  Regular  Nuisance i 

Early  Stages  of  the  Bloomer  Fever to 

The  Suburban  Horse 22 

The  Building  Craze 36 

Moving  In 4^ 

A  Water-Color  House 58 

The  Pointers 7° 

The  Furnace 80 

The  Time-Table  Test 9° 

The  Society  Church 100 

The  Suburbanite  and  His  Golf 112 

The  Suburban  Dog 122 

The  Newcomers J34 

The  First  of  It 146 

The  Sporting  Scheme 158 

The  Evolution  of  the  Suburbanite 168 


MR.   CHEDBY  ON   A    REGULAR 
NUISANCE. 


MR.    CHEDBY     ON     A     REGULAR 
NUISANCE. 

seems  quite  possible,"  I  said  to  my 
wife;     "and    if   Chedby    ever    had 
anything   of  his    own    that   I    could 
possibly  use,   I   should  certainly  go 
down   and   make  a  pretense  of  bor- 
rowing it,  just  to  get  a  look  about 
the  place.      But   I   hardly   know   the   man, 
long  as  he  's  been    here,   and   I   should    suppose 
he  might  think  it  strange  if  I   dropped  in  there 
at    this    late    date   with    no    ostensible    reason  — 
that  is,   of  course,  if  it  is  so." 

My  wife  pondered  a  moment,  and  then 
came  to  my  rescue. 

"  You    might    go  down  on    your    afternoon 
walk,"  she  suggested,   "  and  ask  him  if  that  dog 
that  strayed  in  here  yesterday  belongs  to  him." 
"That 's  a  good  idea,"  said  I;   "I  '11  put  the 
dog  in  a  leash,  and  take  him  right  down  there." 
"  I   don't  think   I  would  take  the  dog  down 
with   you,   dear,"   my  wife  said,  thoughtfully. 
"Why  not?"   I   asked. 

"  Well,  you  know  best,  my  dear,"  she  re- 
plied meekly;  "but  I  only  thought  that  if  you 
were  just  to  say  that  the  dog  had  strayed  in  • 


£be  Suburban  Sage. 


here,  and  that  he  seemed  to  be  quite  a  valuable 
fox-terrier  —  " 

"  I  see,"  I  said,  with  a  sudden  flash  of  illu- 
mination ;  "  and  he  's  such  a  really  valuable 
animal  that  I  hate  to  take  the  responsibility 
of  keeping  him." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  well,  my  dear,"  said 
my  wife,  sedately.  "  The  poor  creature  cried 
all  night  in  the  cellar,  and  neither  of  our  dogs 
will  have  him  about  the  place." 

Inside  of  half  an  hour  I  presented  myself 
at  Mr.  Chedby's  gate.  He  lived  the  better  part 
of  a  mile  away  from  me,  near  the  River  Road. 


I    found    Mr.  Chedby  industriously  pulling 
an  iron  roller  up  and  down  the  bit  of  grass-plot 


^   /Ifcr.  Gbe&bg  on  a  IRegular  Iftuteance,    ^ 

which  is  known  in  our  suburban  community  by 
a  polite  and  friendly  fiction  as  a  "  lawn."  The 
roller  was  old,  and  of  a  somewhat  battered  ap- 
pearance, and,  being  unusually  small  and  light, 
it  carried  in  its  inside,  beside  the  usual  comple- 
ment of  weights,  an  extra  one  in  the  shape  of 
a  small  iron  glue-kettle,  which  had  been  filled 
up  solidly  with  melted  lead.  Mr.  Chedby  greet- 
ed me  cordially,  but  he  responded  to  my  inquiry 
with  something  like  suspicion. 

"  I  did  lose  a  fox-terrier,"  he  said,  after 
some  hesitation ;  "  but  it  was  most  two  weeks 
ago,  and  I  guess  he  's  been  snapped  up  long 
ago.  He  was  a  fine-blooded  dog.  Is  the  one 
you  've  got  a  fine-blooded  dog?" 

I  assured  him  that  the  dog's  blood  was 
the  finest  of  the  fine,  and  this  seemed  to  en- 
courage him  to  think  that  it  might  be  his  dog, 
after  all;  but  I  could  not  help  feeling  that  he 
had  his  doubts  about  the  genuineness  of  my 
enthusiasm.  And,  for  a  fact,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  it  does  n't  look  natural  and  un- 
affected to  be  too  honest  in  horse  and  dog 
matters. 

This  became  quite  evident  when,  on  Mr. 
Chedby's  proposing  to  look  in  on  me  sometime 
in  the  course  of  the  week  to  see  if  he  could 
identify  the  dog,  I  had  the  indiscretion  to  urge 
him  to  fix  an  earlier  date.  This  chilled  his 
interest  to  such  an  extent  that  he  hastily  de- 
cided that  it  could  not  be  his  dog,  and  that  if 
it  was,  he  did  n't  want  him,  anyway. 

He  must  have  seen  the  disappointment  on 
my  face,  for  he  went  on  talking  in  a  soothing 
strain. 


<y    £be  Suburban  Sage,    V 

"The  fact  is,  Mr.  Sage,"  he  said,  as  he 
and  the  roller  drew  up  in  front  of  me;  "the 
fact  is  that  a  man  who  lives  in  one  of  these 
suburban  towns  never  knows  half  the  time  what 
he  has  got  and  what  he  has  n't  got.  I  don't 
know;  that  may  be  my  dog,  or  it  may  not. 
Again,  it  may  be  some  other  man's  dog;  and 
I  've  got  so  that  I  sometimes  think  I  don't 
care."  He  stacked  himself  up  against  the  roller 
handle,  and  began  to  discourse  with  the  air  of 
a  heavy  philosopher. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  said;  "that's  the  state  we're  in 
in  these  suburban  towns;  and  do  you  know  what, 
in  my  opinion,  is  the  cause  that  brings  it  about  ? 
It  's  the  borrowing  habit,  sir;  the  borrowing 
habit!  The  borrowing  habit  has  got  so  grafted 
on  us  that  I  find  it  mighty  hard,  sometimes,  to 
keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  fatal  infection  that  I 
see  all  around  me.  It  begins  —  it  strikes  in  — 
just  as  soon  as  a  man  moves  here  from  the  city. 
Take  this  family  that  moved  in  next  door,  for 
instance,  two  days  ago.  I  don't  suppose  they  'd 
ever  known  what  it  was  to  borrow  a  thing  before 
in  their  lives,  but,  Lord  !  they  caught  the  disease 
right  off.  First,  they  borrowed  a  box -opener 
from  the  man  next  door  on  the  other  side. 
Then  they  sent  over  the  way  and  borrowed  a 
drawing  of  tea.  Then,  by  Jove!  they  came 
over  here  and  borrowed  some  hot  water  out  of 
the  kitchen  kettle  to  make  the  tea  with.  Well, 
I  don't  say  anything  against  that.  Of  course, 
when  you  move  into  a  strange  place  you  have 
to  depend  upon  your  neighbors  a  little.  I  had 
to  do  it,  myself,  when  I  first  moved  out  here. 
But  I  only  mention  it  to  show  how  the  disease 

4 


begins.  It  will  be  milk  next;  they  always  want 
to  borrow  milk..  Then  it  will  go  on  to  butter 
and  eggs.  Sugar,  of  course,  and  tea  and  coffee 
right  along  —  that's  the  regular  thing.  Pretty 
soon  it  will  be  a  bucket  of  coal  or  a  barrow  load 
of  kindlings.  Then  they  get  to  hanging  pictures 
and  putting  up  shelves  around  the  house,  and 
then  it  's  hammers  and  saws  and  nails.  Ham- 
mers and  saws  sometimes  come  back,  when  you 
go  after  them,  but  nails,  never!  I  knew  a  man 
who  lent  a  keg  of  nails,  once,  to  a  neighbor's 
wife.  Some  months  afterward  he  met  the  neigh- 
bor, and  the  neighbor  says  to  him  :  <  Oh,  Smith, 
did  n't  my  folks  borrow  some  brads  or  nails  or 
some  blame  thing  or  other  from  you  a  while  ago  ? 
I  '11  tell  my  hardware  man  to  send  them  up  to 
you.'  Well,  when  Smith  got  home,  what  do  you 
think  he  found?  A  paper  of  carpet  tacks  from 
the  hardware  dealer.  Yes,  sir;  a  paper  of  carpet 


-^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    -V 

tacks.  Did  he  kick  ?  Not  much.  He  knew  he 
was  lucky  to  get  even  that.  And,  talking  about 
hammers,  I  can  tell  you  the  funniest  story,  just 
to  show  how  this  borrowing  habit  weakens  a 
man's  sense  of  individual  ownership  in  property. 
Some  time  ago  I  missed  a  hammer  that  I  'd  been 
working  with,  and  had  left  on  the  front  stoop  for 
half  an  hour  or  so.  Next  day  I  met  a  man  — 
I  won't  say  who  he  is  —  but  he  don't  live  far 
from  here,  and  says  he  to  me,  «  Oh,  Mr.  Chedby, 
I  was  going  along  the  street  here  the  other  day, 
and  I  saw  the  hammer  I  lent  you  lying  on  your 
front  stoop.  I  happened  to  need  it  just  then,  so 
I  took  it  along  with  me.'  Well,  sir,  I  did  n't  say 
anything  to  him;  but  that  man  had  no  more 
right  to  that  hammer  than  you  have;  and  it 
did  n't  look  anything  like  his  hammer.  The 
hammer  he  took  belonged  to  Robinson,  down 
the  street  here,  and  his  hammer  was  up  in  the 
garret  in  my  tool-chest  all  the  time.  But,  of 
course,  I  had  to  tell  Robinson,  when  he  came 
out  for  his  hammer.  And  I  understand  that 
there  's  been  a  coolness  between  the  two  of  them 
ever  since.  Well,  you  could  n't  expect  anything 
else.  That  's  one  of  the  indirect  effects  of  the 
disease.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  the  borrowing  habit 
is  the  curse  of  suburban  life.  It  's  got  to  be  a 
regular  nuisance,  sir;  a  regular  unmitigated,  un- 
qualified damned  nuisance,  if  you  '11  excuse  the 
profanity." 

Here  Mr.  Chedby  paused  and  mopped  his 
perspiring  forehead.  The  sinking  sun  glowed  red 
through  the  evening  haze.  It  reminded  me  that 
my  homeward  walk  up  the  hill  would  take  me 
longer  than  the  journey  down;  and  that  the  real 

6 


purpose  of  my  mission  had  been  accomplished, 
even  though  I  had  n't  got  rid  of  the  dog. 

"Mr.  Chedby,"  I  said,  as  I  turned  away, 
"when  you  are  quite  through  with  using  that 
roller,  will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  send  your  man 
up  to  my  place  with  it  ?  I  Ve  got  a  lot  of  new 
lawn  to  roll,  or  I  'd  be  happy  to  spare  it  to  you 
as  much  longer  as  you  want  it.  But  if  you  can 
send  your  man  up  with  it  in  the  morning,  I  '11  be 
much  obliged.  (He  had  no  man;  but  it  is  a 
polite  suburban  fiction  to  assume  that  everybody 
keeps  one.) 

If  I  had  cherished  any  hopes  of  disturbing 
Mr.  Chedby's  serenity,  I  should  have  been  dis- 
appointed. 

"Sho!"  he  said;  "is  that  queer  old  contrap- 
tion yours?  I  was  just  wondering  whoever  owned 


Gbe  Suburban  Sage, 


it.  I  got  it  down  the  street  here  at  Higgin- 
botham's.  The  family  was  n't  at  home,  and  there 
was  nobody  that  could  tell  me  anything  about  it. 
Why,  that  old  thing  has  been  kicking  about  this 
neighborhood  for  more  than  six  months." 

"More  than  a  year,  I   think,  Mr.  Chedby," 
said  I.     "You  '11  send  your  man  up  with  it  in  the 
morning?" 

Mr.  Chedby  looked  at  the  roller 
and  then  at  the  long  road  up 
the  hill  to  my  house.     Then 
he  turned  to  me  in  a  burst 
of  hearty   cordiality: 

"Why,    I    am    clean 
through  with  it,"  he  said. 
"I  would  n't  have  kept 
you  out  of  it  a  min- 
ute   if    I    'd    known 
you  wanted  it.     You 
take    it    right    along 
with  you  now.     Don't 
mind  about  me.      My 
work  can  wait.     Take  it  right  along!" 

I  thanked  him  kindly,  but  I  told  him  that  it 
would  be  quite  time  enough  if  his  man  brought  it 
up  in  the  morning. 


EARLY    STAGES    OF    THE 
BLOOMER    FEVER. 


EARLY   STAGES   OF   THE   BLOOMER 
FEVER. 


rOR  several  weeks  this  Spring  I  was 
a  hay-widower.  I  take  this  term 
to  be  the  masculine  equivalent  of 
"  grass  -widow  "  as  applied  to  a 
member  of  a  matrimonial  firm  tem- 
porarily parted  from  the  rest  of 
the  household,  and  leading  a  sepa- 
rate but  not  wholly  independent  exist- 
ence. By  whatever  name  you  choose  to 
call  my  state,  I  was  certainly,  for  the  time 
being,  quite  bereft  of  family  ties.  Mrs.  Sage  and 
the  children  and  the  children's  nurse  were  all 
visiting  Mrs.  Sage's  family  to  foregather  with  an 
elderly  uncle  who  had  just  returned  from  India 
in  a  state  of  sickening  and  offensive  affluence. 
Personally,  I  do  not  believe  that  he  will  ever  pan 
out  one  cent's  worth ;  but  that  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  The  domestic  staff  had  been  allowed  a 
vacation,  all  except  Bartholomew.  Bartholomew 
is  our  man  —  or,  at  least,  as  near  to  the  man  as 
we  have  yet  got.  New-comers  in  the  town  speak 
of  him  as  a  boy,  until  they  get  into  suburban 
ways,  and  learn  that  that  is  not  polite  either  to 
him  or  to  his  employer.  Bartholomew  remained 


Stages  of  tbe  rJBloomer  ffever, 


to  guard  the  house,  and  in  this  occupation  he 
took  great  pride  and  pleasure,  for  it  gave  him  a 
good  excuse  for  sleeping  with  his  grandfather's 
old  percussion-cap  shot-gun  by  his  bed-side,  so 
that  he  could  be  able  to  repel  burglars  at  a 
moment's  notice.  You  might  have  abstracted 
seventeen  steel  safes  from  the  house  without 
awakening  Bartholomew,  and  no  earthly  power 


;^^P=rf^i 

Mi:  ,    MHtt 


could  ever  have  made  that  gun  go  off;  but  Bar- 
tholomew slept  proud  and  happy  all  the  same. 

I  made  no  use  of  my  lonely  mansion,  except 
to  go  there  to  do  my  work,  which  is  the  writing 
of  such  things  as  this.  I  had  no  need  to  dwell 
within  its  silent  walls.  The  lot  of  a  hay-widower 
in  a  suburban  town  is  not  unhappy  by  any 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage,    ^r 

means;  in  fact,  his  condition  makes  him  a  valu- 
able member  of  society.  He  may  be  invited  to 
dinner  without  his  wife  —  and  every  housekeeper 
knows  what  that  means.  It  is  one  thing  to 
invite  the  unobservant  male  animal  to  take  pot- 
luck  with  you,  and  it  is  quite  another  to  subject 
the  every-day  fatigue-dress  style  of  your  domestic 
economy  to  the  keen  and  critical  feminine  eye. 
So  it  came  about  that  I  got  not  only  dinner  invi- 
tations, but  bids  to  stay  a  week  at  this  house 
and  a  week  at  that,  and  I  made  quite  a  picnic 
of  my  desolation  and  abandonment. 

Now,  when  I  say  I  am  going  to  give  you 
an  abstract  of  a  study  in  feminine  ethics,  which 
I  made  under  the  roof  of  my  good  friend, 
Biddleby,  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  am 
violating  no  confidence  imposed  upon  me  by 
the  generous  jiospitality  which  I  enjoyed.  I 
make  this  statement  with  Mrs.  Biddleby's  full 
consent  and  permission. 

I  am  fond  of  making  studies  of  feminine 
methods  of  marital  management.  I  know,  of 
course,  that  I,  myself,  am  managed  at  home; 
but  I  do  not  know  just  how  it  is  done,  and  I  am 
not  likely  to  be  let  to  know.  But  while  the  pro- 
cess of  management  is  generally  imperceptible 
to  the  husband  who  is  being  managed,  it  is  often 
quite  clearly  visible  to  the  casual  onlooker;  and 
it  amuses  me  greatly  to  see  the  manipulation  of 
my  fellows.  Whatever  I  may  think  of  myself, 
I  can  smile  a  superior  smile  at  their  weakness 
and  blindness.  I  will  now  proceed  to  my  brief 
statement,  which  is  based  partly  upon  what  Mrs. 
Biddleby  afterward  told  me. 

It   happened   one  day  as,   in   going  to   my 


Stages  of  tbe  bloomer  ffever. 


room,  I  passed  by  the  door  of  Mrs.  Biddleby's 
sewing-room,  the  draught  of  an  open  window 
blew  against  my  feet  three  or  four  pieces  of  light- 
brown  tissue  paper  cut  into  curious  shapes,  and 
perforated  with  many  little  round  holes.  Seeing 
that  there  was  nobody  around  to  take  charge 
of  them,  I  carried  them  into  the  sewing-room 
and  looked  for  something  heavy  to  lay  on  them. 
The  only  thing  I  found  was  a  huge  pamphlet 
that  lay  open  on  a  chair.  I  could  not  help 
noticing  that  the  open  pages  showed  a  number 
of  designs  for  a  garment  then  coming  noticeably 
into  general  use,  but  still  regarded  in  conservative 
feminine  circles  with  a  certain  degree  of  distrust 
and  even  disfavor.  I  need  not  say  that  I  got 
out  of  the  room  quickly  and  quietly;  and  that 
I  tried  not  to  consider  the  remarkable  likeness 


Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

in  shape  between  the  pieces  of  paper  I  had 
gathered  up  and  certain  dotted  designs  on  the 
paper  under  my  eye.  I  knew,  of  course,  that 
Mrs.  Biddleby  was  taking  bicycle  lessons. 

The  next  day  I  brought  the  Biddleby  mail 
home  with  my  own  when  I  came  from  the  post- 
office,  and  it  consisted  principally  of  bulky  en- 
velopes bearing  the  names  of  New  York  dry- 
goods  houses.  I  have  been  so  long  married  that 
it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  I  knew  that  they 
contained  samples  of  dress  goods.  I  also  knew 
that  Mrs.  Biddleby  had  recently  expressed  her 
satisfaction  with  having  got  done  with  the  dress- 
makers, for  that  season,  at  least. 

It  was  some  two  or  three  days  after  this, 
that  as  I  was  going  from  my  house  to  Biddleby's, 
I  encountered  Mrs.  Biddleby  and  three  of  her 
friends  practicing  bicycle  riding  on  a  smooth 
stretch  of  macadam  road.  They  had  evidently 
got  beyond  the  care  of  their  tutor,  but  they  were 
still  taking  turns  at  practice  work  on  a  hired 
bicycle.  I  joined  them,  for  they  were  evidently 
quite  past  the  nervous  state,  and  I  sat  with  those 
who  were  not  riding,  on  a  low  stone  wall,  and 
watched  the  rider  on  the  wheel  exhibit  her  newly 
acquired  skill.  Mrs.  Biddleby  was  easily  the 
cleverest  and  most  self-possessed  rider  of  them 
all,  and  I  was  somewhat  surprised  when  she  dis- 
mounted and  sat  down  beside  us,  and  said  in  an 
almost  petulant  tone : 

"Well,  I  declare,  I  really  don't  know  what 
I  am  going  to  do  about  it!  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
have  to  give  the  whole  thing  up.  I  certainly 
can't  attempt  to  ride  if  my  skirt  keeps  catching 
the  way  it  does." 

14 


I  had  not  observed  that  her  skirt  had 
caught,  and  I  was  just  exactly  fool  enough  to 
tell  her  so. 

"  Oh,  well,  you  could  n't  have  noticed,  or 
perhaps  you  're  just  saying  so  out  of  kindness, 
but  I  came  near  having  a  terrible  fall  twice  on 
my  way  up  the  road  and  once  coining  down; 
and  I  'm  sure  I  Ve  ripped  every  bit  of  binding 
off  on  this  side.  Look  there ! "  and  she  pointed 
to  where  nearly  three-quarters  of  an  inch  of 
braid  had  fetched  loose. 

"  Skirts  are  a  perfect  misery,  anyway,"  said 
Miss  Applegate,  the  next  best  rider  in  the  quar- 
tette; and  she  turned  to  me,  and  added,  auda- 
ciously :  "  I  do  sometimes  wish  that  women  could 
dress  the  same  way  you  men  do — " 

"  I  agree  with  you  entirely,"  said  Mrs.  Bid- 
dleby.  "  And,  do  you  know,  when  I  was  down 
on  the  River  Road  the  other  day,  and  saw  one  of 
is 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

those  women  coming  along  with  bloomers  on, 
I  almost  envied  the  vulgar  thing,  she  looked  so 
easy  and  comfortable." 

"  Oh,  Milly !  how  can  you  say  so  ? "  cried 
another  of  the  ladies;  but  a  fourth  came  to  Mrs. 
Biddleby's  assistance. 

"  Well,  I  saw  her,  too ;  and,  do  you  know,  I 
was  thinking  the  very  same  thing.  And,  really, 
Mrs.  Biddleby,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  did  n't 
think  she  looked  vulgar  a  bit." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  ought  to  have 
called  her  exactly  vulgar,"  Mrs.  Biddleby  amend- 
ed ;  "  but,  of  course,  you  know,  it  does  look  a 
little  —  how  shall  I  call  it  ?  —  unconventional." 

Then  all  the  four  ladies  held  a  little  autopsy 
on  the  word,  and  decided  that  the  English  lan- 
guage did  n't  furnish  anything  suitable.  So  they 
had  recourse  to  French  and  called  it  outre. 

"Well,  I  don't  care,"  said  Mrs.  Biddleby, 
summing  up;  "I  think  we  're  all  of  us  too  much 
slaves  of  fashion,  and  I  am  sure  if  I  thought  I 
could  look  half  as  well  in  them  as  that  woman 
did,  I  should  wear  them,  whatever  people  might 
say." 

Encouraged  by  this  bold  stand,  the  lady 
who  had  been  so  shocked  at  first  said  that  she 
thought  so,  too,  and  she  had  all  along. 

Then  I  put  my  foot  into  it  again.      I  said: 

"  If  your  skirts  catch,  why  could  n't  you 
make  them  a  little  shorter?" 

Mrs.  Biddleby  turned  on  me  in  a  very  pretty 
flame  of  indignation,  and  exhibited  her  skirt, 
which  was  so  high  that  it  absolutely  exposed  a 
small  sample  of  her  ankle ;  and  she  said : 

"  There,   you  would  n't  have  me  wear  any 

16 


shorter  skirt  than  that,  would  you?  Why,  it  's 
positively  indecent  as  it  is!  No;  of  course  you 
men  don't  know  about  such  things;  but  I  can 
tell  you  that  a  woman  takes  her  life  in  her  hands 
every  time  that  she  goes  on  a  bicycle  with  a 
skirt  on." 


Mrs.     Biddleby    had    made    her    husband 
promise   to   buy  her  a  machine  as  soon  as  she 
n 


•y   Gbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

had  learned  to  ride  really  well;  but  Biddleby, 
for  a  reason  which  I  will  mention  later  on,  was 
quite  cool  about  the  project.  Therefore,  it  de- 
volved upon  Mrs.  Biddleby  to  bring  up  the  topic 
every  day,  so  as  to  keep  him  informed  of  her 
progress.  Hitherto  her  reports. had  been  cheer- 
ful and  encouraging;  but  this  evening  I  noticed 
that  she  dwelt  at  great  length  on  the  bruises  and 
sprains  she  had  suffered  when  she  fell,  in  con- 
sequence of  catching  her  skirt  in  the  sprocket. 
The  next  morning  at  breakfast,  she  was  so  lame 
that  she  could  hardly  move,  and  very  low  in  her 
mind.  She  told  Biddleby  that  he  was  n't  sorry 
enough  for  her.  He  said  yes,  he  was,  and  sug- 
gested arnica.  She  explained  that  she  suffered 
principally  in  her  mind,  because  she  feared  she 
would  have  to  give  up  riding,  just  as  she  was 
doing  so  well.  Biddleby  said  just  what  I  said 
about  the  skirts,  and  got  just  what  I  got.  Then 
the  lady  hooked  her  fish. 

"  Well,"  said  Biddleby,  as  he  got  up  to  take 
the  train,  « if  that  's  the  case,  I  don't  see  what 
you  can  do  about  it,  dear,  unless  you  get  a  pair 
of  those  two-legged  thingumajiggers  —  what  do 
you  call  them  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Henry  !  "  cried  his  wife,  in  tones  of 
horror;  "you  wouldn't  have  me  wear  bloomers!" 

"  Better  than  breaking  your  neck,  I  should 
think,"  said  Henry,  absent-mindedly,  as  he  went 
out  of  the  door. 


Next  day  it  rained,  and  the  day  after  that. 
The  third  day,  however,  was  fair,  and,  as  soon  as 
the  bicycle  lessons  began,  I  joined  the  ladies. 

18 


^    j£arl£  Stance  of  tbe  JBloomer  ffever.    ^ 

They  had  not  reached  the  ground  more  than  two 
minutes  in  advance  of  me,  but  as  soon  as  I  came 
up  I  heard  Mrs.  Biddleby  saying  : 

"  Do  you  know,  my  dear,  I  really  don't 
know  what  I  shall  do.  Henry  is  absolutely  set 
on  the  idea  of  my  wearing  bloomers,  and  you 
know  how  determined  he  is  when  he  gets  an  idea 
into  his  head.  Why,  only  day  before  yesterday 
he  said  to  me,  as  he  was  going  to  the  train  :  <  My 
dear,  it  is  simply  a  case  of  life  and  death,  and 
you  should  not  let  any  other  considerations  out- 
weigh that ! ' " 

I  lingered  with  them  only  four  or  five  min- 
utes; but  before  I  left,  the  three  other  dear  hum- 
bugs had  banded  themselves  together  to  wear 
bloomers,  just  by  way  of  giving  moral  support  to 
Mrs.  Biddleby. 


But  this  is  not  quite  all.  Here  is  Biddleby's 
reason  for  looking  coldly  on  the  bicycle  project, 
as  stated  to  me  when  the  lessons  first  began. 

"  I  'd  be  more  than  glad  to  get  my  wife  a 
bicycle  if  it  was  n't  that  I  Ve  heard  so  much 
about  accidents  that  happen  to  women  riding  in 
long  dresses;  and,  of  course,  there  's  no  con- 
sideration on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  would 
make  Mrs.  Biddleby  put  on  one  of  those  sensible 
Zouave  trouser  rigs  —  what  do  they  call  them, 
now  ?  —  Bloomers  ?  Oh,  yes !  that  's  the  name." 


THE  SUBURBAN   HORSE. 


sit 


THE  SUBURBAN    HORSE. 


HAVE  often  wondered  where  the  suburb- 
an horse  lives  before  he  comes  to  the 
suburbs;  and  I  have  sometimes  thought 
that  there  must  be  people  who  make 
a  special  business  of  going  about  all 
over  the  country  and  collecting  misfit 
horses  of  odd,  job-lot  sizes  and  styles, 
for  distribution  in  suburban  towns. 

City  horses  and  real  country  horses  may  be 
readily  divided  into  various  grades  and  classes; 
recognizable  even  to  one  as  ignorant  of  such  mat- 
ters as  I  am.  Though  every  householder  here  — 
except  myself  —  owns  one  horse,  at  least,  I  am 
sure  that  you  could  not  pick  anything  remotely 
resembling  a  matched  pair  out  of  the  whole  lot. 
I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  true  suburban 
horse.  I  have  several  neighbors  of  sporty  pro- 
clivities, who  own  costly  teams  of  high-blooded 
horses,  which  are  spoken  of  in  a  reverential  sort 
of  way  as  "fine  actors,"  or  "grand  steppers."  I 
do  not  speak  from  personal  knowledge  of  the 
quality  of  these  animals;  I  only  know  that  they 
walk  as  if  they  had  corns,  and  that  they  are 
always  sick;  and  these,  I  am  assured,  are  signs 
of  high  blood  and  great  commercial  value  in  a 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Dorse.    ^ 

horse.  But  I  am  not  speaking  about  animals  such 
as  these.  You  may  see  their  like  everywhere 
where  people  are  trying  to  get  rid  of  their  money. 
But  the  suburban  horse  belongs  to  the  suburbs, 
and  is  a  thing  to  be  studied  all  by  himself. 

In  the  first  place,  he  is  no  particular  kind 
of  horse  —  or  he  is  any  and  every  kind,  as  you 
please  to  put  it.  His  quality,  character  and  sta- 
tion among  horses  depend  almost  entirely  upon 
his  ownership  and  employment;  and  he  has  only 


to  change  hands  to  change  his  nature.  He  is 
one  horse  if  you  own  him,  and  another  horse  if  7 
own  him;  and  he  may  be  any  number  of  horses 
in  the  course  of  his  long  and  peaceful  but  much 
varied  existence.  Having  no  horse  or  carriage 
of  my  own,  good  or  bad,  to  provide  for,  I  am  a 
mere  spectator  of  other  men's  horses,  and  how 
they  play  their  parts,  and  you  have  no  idea  how 
diversely  they  are  presented  unto  me. 

Take  the  case  of  Rix,  for  instance.     I  take 

23 


-y   Cbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

his  case  because  he  is  the  horse  I  know  best, 
and  because  he  is  one  of  the  very  few  that  I  can 
recognize  at  sight.  In  the  way  of  horse-flesh  it 
takes  something,  as  a  rule,  about  as  showy  as  a 
calico  circus  pony  to  attract  my"  attention  and  fix 
itself  in  my  memory.  But  Rix  and  I  got  per- 
sonally acquainted  when  I  first  came  to  the  town, 
and  I  have  since  watched  his  checkered  career 
with  a  friendly  interest. 

When  I  first  knew  him  he  belonged  to  a 
market-gardener  in  the  next  county,  who  used  to 
come  to  my  door  with  his  vegetables.  The 
gardener  was  a  very  intelligent  man,  and  I  got 
into  the  habit  of  talking  botany  with  him  while  I 
fed  his  own  things  to  his  own  horse.  The  town 
was  quite  small  then,  and  decidedly  lonely  at 
times,  and  even  tree -peddlers  and  book -agents 
were  welcomed  with  a  cordiality  and  courtesy  that 
sometimes  lured  them  into  thinking  that  we  meant 
to  buy.  So  I  used  to  be  very  glad  to  see  Rix 
and  the  market  -  gardener,  and  when  the  latter 
gave  up  the  business  because  he  said  there  was 
no  profit  in  it,  I  really  felt  considerable  remorse 
for  the  way  I  had  pampered  his  animal  with 
luxuries  at  his  expense. 

The  gardener  asked  me  if  I  knew  anybody 
who  wanted  to  buy  a  horse.  I  told  him  that  I 
had  heard  the  old  butcher  in  Orchard  Lane  say 
something  about  buying  a  horse;  and  he  asked 
me  to  speak  to  the  butcher  about  it.  This  I  did, 
and  they  met  in  my  back  yard,  and  the  bargain 
was  struck.  I  never  saw  my  friend,  the  gardener, 
again;  but  when  JRix  came  around  with  the 
butcher's  meat,  I  felt  as  though  he  were  quite  an 
old  acquaintance. 


Now,  up  to  this  date,  I  wish  you  to  observe, 
the  horse  was  devoid  of  any  noticeable  character- 
istic. He  had  no  pedigree.  The  gardener  had 
bought  him  from  a  wandering  Swede,  and  had 
named  him  Rix-Dollar,  with  a  vague  idea  that  he 
ought  to  do  something  Scandinavian  in  the  mat- 
ter. He  was  a  very  dark  bay  horse,  neither  large 
nor  small,  of  an  equable  disposition,  and  quite 
sound  and  healthy.  Indeed,  I  may  say  for  Rix 
that  he  was  never  sick  but  once  in  his  life.  I 
was  present  when  the  butcher  bought  him,  and  I 
heard  his  points  discussed;  but  I  could  not  make 
out  that  they  were  different  from  those  of  any 
other  horse. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  months  the  old  butch- 
25 


Suburban  Sage.    «y 

er  died,  and  left  no  immediate  successor.  I  had 
to  go  elsewhere  for  my  meat;  and  I  really  missed 
the  sight  of  Rix  jogging  deliberately  on  his  daily 
rounds,  with  the  white-bearded  old  butcher  half- 
asleep  in  the  wagon. 

But  one  day  we  heard  that  a  new  butcher 
had  taken  the  old  place ;  and  that  the  new  butcher 
was  a  great  sport,  and  was  going  to  make  things 
hum  in  the  meat  business  in  our  town.  I  strolled 
around  to  Orchard  Lane  to  see  what  the  new 
butcher  was  like.  He  was  not  in  his  shop;  but 
as  I  started  homeward  I  heard  a  furious  clatter 
of  hoofs  down  the  street,  and,  casting  up  my  eyes, 
beheld  a  large,  red  -  faced  stranger  in  a  showy 
vehicle  of  the  dog-cart  sort,  driving  a  dark  bay 
horse  at  a  rattling  clip.  The  man  was  the  new 
butcher,  and  the  horse  was  Rix  —  Rix  in  a  showy 
harness  with  brass  trimmings  all  over  him,  with 
bracelets  on  his  ankles,  and  with  a  patent-leather 
shine  on  his  hoofs.  I  marvelled  much.  The 
butcher  did  not  interest  me;  but  it  was  clear  to 
my  mind  that  either  Rix  was  acting  a  part  now, 
or  that  he  had  heretofore  dissembled  his  true 
character.  I  did  n't  particularly  object  to  his 
present  frivolous  worldliness,  but  I  thought  he 
ought  to  have  let  me  know  before  that  he  was 
that  kind  of  a  horse. 

Shortly  after  this,  a  friend  of  mine,  whose 
knowledge  of  the  noble  Horse  was  so  profound 
and  pervasive  that  it  came  out  in  his  clothes, 
spent  a  few  days  with  me  looking  about  the  town, 
with  a  view  to  taking  a  house  in  the  succeeding 
Fall.  He  happened  to  see  the  butcher  drive  by 
behind  Rix,  and  he  was  as  much  impressed  as  a 
really  horsey  person  ever  allows  himself  to  be. 

26 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Iborse.    y 

He  told  me  that  the  dog-cart  was  entirely  incor- 
rect in  the  matter  of  style,  and  that  the  butcher 
did  n't  know  how  to  drive;  but  that  the  horse  was 
an  uncommonly  neat  little  animal,  and  that  if  he, 
my  friend,  had  that  horse  for  six  months,  he  could 
make  something  of  him. 

"I  've  owned  worse,  myself,  my  boy,  before 
this,  I  can  tell  you,"  he  said,  patting  me  encourag- 
ingly on  the  shoulder;  and  I  felt  that  his  praise 
of  Rix  reflected  a  certain  glory  on  the  whole 
township,  including  myself.  I  did  n't  say  any- 
thing to  him  about  Rix's  earlier  days;  for  I  al- 
ways make  it  a  point  to  go  light  on  such  particu- 
lars when  I  am  talking  with  a  man  who  wears 
horse-shoe  pins,  and  has  gold  whips  and  wheels 


-?  ^ 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

and  axle-trees,  and  other  miniature  imitations  of 
stable  upholstery  on  his  watch-chain. 

A  few  weeks  later  my  friend  wrote  to  me, 
asking  me  to  see  if  I  could  buy  Rix  for  him,  and 
have  him  kept  on  a  neighboring  stock-farm  until 
the  Fall.  He  named  the  figure  which  he  was 
willing  to  "go"  for  the  horse.  It  was  a  figure 
that  amazed  me  greatly,  when  I  remembered  the 
modest  price  for  which  he  had  been  sold  in  my 
back  yard.  But  I  knew  better  than  to  say  any- 
thing about  this  to  my  friend;  for  he  was  a  very 
good  friend,  and  I  should  have  hated  to  lose  him. 
Fortunately,  it  made  no  practical  difference;  for 
the  sporty  butcher  had  failed  and  fled  from  his 
creditors,  and  Rix  was  legally  in  the  custody  of 
the  Sheriff,  and  bodily  in  a  pasture  lot  adjoining 
my  place,  whence  he  occasionally  wandered  into 
my  wife's  flower-garden,  and  ate  indiscriminately. 
Later  in  the  season,  a  retired  clergyman,  with  a 
family  of  five  elderly  daughters,  came  to  board  in 
my  neighborhood,  bringing  letters  of  introduction 
to  me.  He  was  in  search  of  a  retired  place  in 
which  to  write  a  six-volume  work  on  palaeon- 
tology. After  he  had  paid  me  six  or  eight  pro- 
tracted calls  and  set  this  fact  forth  at  full  length, 
I  found  him  a  retired  place  at  a  distance  of  about 
seven  miles.  He  rewarded  my  kindness  by  hiring 
Rix  from  the  Sheriff  and  driving  his  whole  family 
into  town  three  times  a  week. 

In  the  Fall  my  friend,  whom  I  shall  call 
Mr.  .Fornand,  came,  and  took  a  house  in  the 
town.  He  had  to  run  out  every  day  for  a  week 
or  so,  to  get  settled,  and  he  frequently  took  his 
luncheon  at  my  house.  This  was  very  pleasant 
for  me,  not  only  because  my  friend  was  good 
28 


Suburban  Iborse.    -y- 

company,  but  because  I  stretched  a  point  and 
told  the  palseontological  clergyman  that  I  had  a 
gentleman  who  raced  horses  staying  at  my  house, 
and  he  promptly  stopped  making  visits  to  town. 
He  stopped  for  so  long,  indeed,  that  I  had 
almost  forgotten  him  and  Rix,  too,  when  one  day 
I  came  across  his  capacious  carryall  standing  at 
the  station.  He  told  me  that  he  was  going 
away,  and  that  the  Sheriff  was  going  to  meet  him 
there,  and  take  charge  of  Rix  again.  Part  of 
this  was  not  pleasant  news  to  me;  and  when,  as 
I  was  hurrying  homeward,  I  caught  up  with 
Fornand  going  in  the  same  direction,  and,  shortly 
afterward,  the  Sheriff  drove  past  us  behind  Rix, 
I  said  somewhat  hastily  to  my  friend : 

"There,  Fornand,  there  's  that  horse  of  the 
butcher's  you  wanted  to  buy  in  the  Spring.  I 
think  you  could  get  him  now." 

As  soon  as  I  had  said  this  I  knew  that  I 
had  made  a  mistake.  A  Summer  of  palaeon- 
tology had  told  on  Rix,  and  he  had  absorbed 
something  of  the  depressed  and  mildewed  appear- 
ance of  the  prehistoric  carryall  behind  him.  But 
I  confess  I  was  somewhat  startled  when  my 
friend  burst  out  in  wild  guffaws  of  derisive  mirth, 
and  shouted : 

"That  horse  the  one  I  was  looking  at? 
Why,  Great  Scott!  if  that  is  n't  the  funniest  thing 
I  have  heard  in  a  year!  That  horse  the  butch- 
er's ?  Well,  Sage,  I  always  knew  you  were  pretty 
green  about  horses,  but  I  did  think  you  had 
enough  gumption  to  know  a  first-class  animal 
from  an  old  plug  like  that." 

I  did  n't  attempt  to  argue  with  him ;  I  was 
ashamed,  anyway,  of  Rix's  present  appearance, 

2Q 


and  I  thought  I  would  let  the  matter  drop.  But 
it  did  n't  drop.  He  guffawed  all  the  way  up  to 
the  house,  and  then  he  told  my  wife  what  a  big 
joke  he  had  on  me.  Afterward  my  wife  said 
to  me,  kindly  but  pitifully: 

"Well,  my  dear,  I  did  n't  think  you  knew 
much  about  horses;  but  I  should  have  thought 
you  would  have  known  Rix" 

For  one  moment  I  thought  of  setting  my- 
self right;  and  then  I  concluded  to  accept  my 
humiliation  as  a  deserved  punishment.  When  a 
man  carries  Christian  forbearance  to  the  extent 
of  making  a  plumb  fool  of  himself,  he  ought  to 
take  the  consequences. 

Rix  went  at  Sheriff's  sale  to  the  teamster 
who  carted  away  my  ashes,  and  to  whom  I  ad- 
vanced twenty  dollars  to  buy  him.  He  came  to 
the  house  twice  a  week,  but  I  hated  to  see  him 
now,  for  he  had  become  a  neglected-looking, 
disreputable,  shaggy  -  haired  brute,  with  worn 

JO 


•y   ftbe  Suburban  Iborse.    ^ 

spots  here  and  there  on  him,  and  a  generally 
moth-eaten  appearance.  I  was  glad  when  the 
teamster  sold  him  to  the  local  expressman,  al- 
though he  was  not  a  success  in  his  new  place. 
Having  grown  accustomed  to  hauling  shamefully 
heavy  loads,  he  suddenly  found  himself  hitched, 
one  fine  Spring  morning,  shortly  before  Easter 
Sunday,  to  a  light  wagon,  laden  principally  with 
paste-board  boxes  that  had  just  arrived  from  New 
York.  When  he  started  to  pull  on  this,  he  be- 
came intoxicated  with  his  comparative  freedom, 
and  ran  away  down  the  street,  scattering  Easter 
millinery  and  dry-goods  right  and  left.  He  was 
sent  to  the  livery  stable  for  safe-keeping;  and 
there  a  tramp  stable-boy,  who  had  been  a  jockey, 
bought  him  for  five  dollars,  took  him  in  hand, 
treated  him  in  the  mysterious  ways  that  are 
known  to  jockeys,  and  actually  got  him  into  such 
a  condition  that  he  sold  him  to  an  undertaker 
who  had  just  started  a  shop  in  the  town.  The 
undertaker  was  a  man  who  took  pride  in  his 
business,  and  he  fattened  Rix  up  and  groomed 
him  and  broke  him  to  hearse  so  thoroughly  that 
in  a  few  months  he  was  as  sleek  and  wholesome- 
looking  a  horse  as  you  would  wish  to  see,  and  I 
felt  proud  of  him  whenever  I  met  him.  He 
attended  only  two  or  three  funerals,  but  his 
dignity  and  style  were  much  admired.  When  the 
undertaker  gave  up  and  went  in  search  of  an 
unhealthier  town,  there  was  lively  competition  for 
Rix  at  the  auction  of  the  business  effects.  He 
went  to  a  local  horse-dealer  for  one  hundred  and 
forty  dollars.  I  attended  the  sale  out  of  curi- 
osity. As  I  was  going  away  I  met  my  friend 
Fornand,  and  I  saw  from  his  sheepish  manner 


^    Cbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

and  from  his  vain  endeavors  to  keep  the  cata- 
logue which  he  held,  out  of  my  sight,  that  he 
had  been  among  the  unsuccessful  bidders.  I 
could  n't  help  it,  and  I  did  n't  want  to.  I  asked 
him  what  he  wanted  with  that  old  plug.  He 
reddened  up;  but  he  had  too  much  capital  in- 
vested in  horsey  jewelry  to  let  me  call  him  down. 


"That  horse  is  no  plug,"  said  he,  "though 
he  may  have  looked  like  one  at  one  time.  The 
man  who  's  driving  may  be  a  plug,  and  that 
makes  a  horse  look  like  a  plug;  but  if  you  knew 
as  much  about  a  horse  as  I  do,  Sage,  you  'd 
know  that  in  the  hands  of  a  right  kind  of  man 
that  would  be  the  right  kind  of  horse.  And 
32 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Iborse.  ^f 

when  your  uncle  tells  you  that,  you  don't  want 
to  forget  it." 

Consequently  he  hired  Rix  from  his  new 
owner,  and  put  him  into  a  scratch  spike-team 
that  he  got  up  to  impress  a  Bergen  Point  man 
who  was  thinking  of  buying  his  house.  This 
occasioned  Rix's  one  sickness.  He  caught  pink- 
eye from  a  thoroughbred. 

Since  then  Rix  has  been  in  several  hands; 
but  he  is  still  recognizable  to  his  old  friends. 
He  worked  on  a  milk  route  for  a  while,  which 
quite  incapacitated  him  for  the  work  of  the 
homoeopathic  physician  who  bought  him  next, 
and  who  was  dreadfully  embarrassed  by  being 
drawn  up  in  front  of  various  houses  where 
nothing  on  earth  would  have  induced  the  in- 
mates to  call  in  an  irregular  practitioner. 

He  is  now  pulling  the  phaeton  of  an  aged 
invalid  lady,  under  the  guidance  of  a  groom  in 
half-livery.  From  what  I  know  of  him,  he  is 
trying  his  best  to  assume  the  demeanor  of  quiet, 
slow-going  and  responsible  respectability  suitable 
to  his  present  position.  What  changes  of  social 
status  and  personal  appearance  may  be  in  store 
for  him  I  can  not  tell;  for  he  is  hardly  more 
than  fourteen  years  old,  and,  for  a  suburban 
horse,  that  is  the  prime  of  life. 


33 


THE    BUILDING    CRAZE. 


THE     BUILDING     CRAZE. 


DROPPED  in  to  see  my  young 
friend  Pinxter  the  other  night.  I 
knew  that  it  was  Mrs.  Pinxter's 
Singing  Society  night,  and  I 
thought  that  Pinxter  might  be 
lonely.  He  has  not  been  long 
enough  in  the  town  for  people  to 
get  in  the  way  of  dropping  in  on  him;  and  he 
can  not  go  out  when  his  wife  is  absent;  for 
they  are  on  their  first  baby,  and  they  don't  think 
it  ought  to  be  left  alone  with  the  nurse.  On 
such  occasions  Pinxter  is  generally  almost  effu- 
sively grateful  for  my  visits.  But  the  other  night 
I  noticed  a  marked  difference  in  his  manner.  I 
could  not  call  him  cool;  indeed,  he  remarked, 
in  the  course  of  conversation,  that  he  had  never 
met  such  friends  anywhere  as  he  had  met  in 
our  town,  and  that  I  was  the  dearest  of  them. 
But  he  certainly  was  absent-minded  and  preoccu- 
pied, and  could  not  help  showing  some  slight 
signs  of  relief  and  satisfaction  when  I  got  up  to 
depart,  after  a  very  brief  stay. 

Do  not  think  that  I  was  offended  at  my 
reception,  and  left  early  for  that  reason.  I  was 
not  in  the  least  hurt.  As  I  was  approaching  the 
room  through  the  hallway,  I  had  seen  Pinxter 


hastily  slip  some  loose  sheets  of  paper  into  a 
big  flat  book,  like  an  atlas,  and  thrust  the  book 
under  the  side-board.  During  all  my  call  his  left 
hand  was  playing  with  a  newly  sharpened  draw- 
ing-pencil. Having  seen  this  much,  I  had  but 
to  look  at  his  abstracted  countenance,  and  to  cal- 
culate the  length  of  his  residence  in  the  suburbs, 
to  know  perfectly  well  that  Pinxter  was  under  the 
spell  of  the  Building  Craze,  and  dead  to  the 
social  world  for  the  time  being. 

I  have  seen  so  many,  many  cases  that  it  is 
an  old  story  to  me;  especially  as  one  case  differs 
from  another  only  in  degree  of  virulence,  and  not 
at  all  in  character.  Pinxter's  will  be  like  every 
other  case  that  I  have  seen;  and  the  breaking 
out  of  the  fever  at  the  normal  and  usual  period 
only  shows  that  he  is  a  natural-born  suburbanite, 
for  such  alone  does  the  disease  attack.  A  man 
who  can  live  a  year  in  a  growing  suburban  town 
without  wanting  to  build  is  a  man  whom  Fate  is 

37 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sacje.    ^ 

pointing  with  inexorable  finger  to  the  penal  cells 
of  a  New  York  flat. 

The  disease  usually  begins  to  fasten  itself 
on  young  people  like  the  Pinxters  during  their 
first  Summer  in  the  suburbs.  Its  approach  is 
gentle,  but  insidious.  It  begins  to  come  on 
when  they  find  out  that  they  are  permitted  to 
roam  at  will  over  cottages  in  process  of  con- 
struction. This  is  a  new  and  strange  joy,  and 
at  first  they  go  about  in  simple,  unaffected  won- 
derment, making  innocent  guesses  at  the  mys- 
teries of  carpentry  and  mason-work.  Then  they 
get  bolder  and  begin  to  criticise  and  offer  sug- 
gestions, which  last  are  rejected  by  the  mechanics 
with  profound  scorn  and  a  flow  of  technical  lan- 
guage that  utterly  abashes  the  suggester. 

But  nothing  checks  the  progress  of  the  dis- 
ease when  it  has  once  started  on  its  course.  In 
the  next  stage,  the  victim  begins  to  learn  the 
technical  talk  for  himself.  By  the  end  of  the 
Summer  it  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  the  victims 
using  lightly  and  airily  such  words  as:  "flashing," 
"rabbet,"  "mould-board,"  "valley,"  and  "pop- 
out."  Some  even  learn  that  in  the  building 
trades  there  is  no  change  in  the  plural  of  certain 
familiar  names,  such  as  "sash,"  "strip,"  "blind" 
and  "joist;"  and  that  "cornice"  is  not  pro- 
nounced as  it  is  spelled.  That  is,  for  instance, 
the  professional  builder  does  not  say  "  those 
cornices,"  but  "  them  cornish." 

Then  comes  the  Fall,  and  they  see  the 
buildings  finished  that  were  a  while  ago  only  a 
mystery  of  naked  timbers.  Until  the  new  oc- 
cupants move  in,  they  may  still  roam  through  the 
bare  rooms,  and  pick  out  what  they  don't  like 
38 


about  each  house.  And  when  the  tenants  move 
in,  there  is  the  delight  of  calling  upon  them,  and 
finding  out  what  they  think  of  the  habitations 
that  are  supposed  to  have  been  shaped  to  fit 
them. 

Winter,  of  course,  puts  an  end  to  alt  this; 
but  it  initiates  the  most  interesting  and  active 
stage  of  the  disease.  The  Pinxters  begin  to 
DRAW  PLANS. 

The  first  plan  that  Pinxter  draws  will  be 
drawn  on  the  back  of  an  envelope.  It  will  be  a 
simple  geometrical  figure  —  a  Maltese  Cross,  per- 
haps, or  an  L,  or  a  semi-circle,  and  he  will  submit 
it  to  his  friends,  and  ask  them  if  they  don't  think 
that  would  be  a  good  shape  for  a  house.  He 
will  find  that  his  friends  do  not  seem  to  be  par- 
ticularly impressed;  and,  after  a  while,  he,  him- 

39 


Suburban  Sage,    -y 

self,  will  begin  to  feel  that  there  is  something 
unsatisfactory  about  it;  and  that  it  requires  an 
effort  of  the  imagination  to  connect  that  empty 
outline  with  the  idea  of  a  habitable  house.  So 
he  fills  it  up  with  rooms,  pretty  much  at  random, 
and  tries  it  on  his  friends  again  —  "just  as  a 
rough  idea,  you  know."  Then  hard,  unsympa- 
thetic persons  will  call  his  attention  to  the  fact 
that  his  front  vestibule  is  larger  than  his  parlor, 
and  that  it  is  unusual,  to  say  the  least,  to  have  a 
dining-room  that  occupies  more  than  half  of  the 
house,  and  that  is  accessible  only  through  the 
kitchen  and  butler's  pantry. 

He  begins  to  see  that  there  are  realms  of 
architectural  knowledge  which  it  behooves  him  to 
explore,  if  he  wants  to  get  people  to  look  at  his 
plans.  So  he  stops  at  the  railway  news-stand 
and  buys  a  twenty-five  cent  book  of  ready-made 
dwelling  plans.  Of  course  he  despises  the  plans ; 
not  because  they  are  despicable  —  as  they  cer- 
tainly are  —  but  because  the  book  cost  twenty- 
five  cents  and  not  one  dollar.  However,  he 
acquires  from  the  book  the  art  and  mystery  of 
drawing  plans;  and,  with  the  aid  of  a  foot  rule 
and  a  T-square,  he  finds  himself  able  to  turn  out 
a  couple  of  dozen  in  the  course  of  a  single 
evening. 

Of  course  he  does  n't  get  just  what  he  wants 
right  at  first.  He  did  n't  expect  to.  Building  a 
house  is  a  serious  matter,  and  his  means  are  lim- 
ited. By  this  time,  too,  he  has  discovered  the 
fact  that  the  size  of  his  house  must  be  fixed  by 
the  size  of  his  pile;  and  that  the  proportion  of 
one  to  the  other  is  to  be  determined  by  a  mathe- 
matical calculation  of  a  very  strict  and  inflexible 
40 


^   Cbe  JBuilDing  Crase.   -y 

sort.  This  does  n't  really  trouble  him.  He  finds 
that  for  the  money  he  has  'to  spend  he  can  get  a 
house  thirty-five  feet  square.  But,  then,  he  really 
does  n't  want  anything  larger.  All  that  he  has  to 
do  is  to  utilize  the  space  at  his  disposal  to  the 
best  advantage.  So  he  sets  to  work  and  draws 
plans,  and  more  plans,  and  other  plans,  and  dif- 


ferent plans  again.  By  this  time  he  has  got  to 
doing  his  work  privately  and  keeping  it  to  him- 
self, so  long  as  it  is  in  the  experimental  stages. 
He  sees  other  suburbanites  of  recent  establish- 
ment trying  the  patience  of  their  friends  with 
plans  born  too  young;  and  he  determines  that  he 
will  make  no  such  mistake.  When  he  finally 
settles  upon  his  plan,  it  shall  be  one  that  is  open 
to  no  criticism,  and  that  will  be  instantly  accept- 
ed, by  all  who  see  it,  as  the  ideal  house  to  be 
constructed  in  that  space  for  that  amount  of 
money.  And,  when  it  is  done,  he  will  bring  it  to 
me  and  exhibit  it  with  an  aspect  in  which  defiant 


-y    Gbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

pride  blends  with  patronizing  superiority,  and  he 
will  say  to  me : 

"There!  if  there  's  anything  wrong  with 
that,  I  would  like  you  to  let  me  know  what  it  is." 

Oh,  how  well  I  know  that  plan !  It  is  neatly 
ruled  out  on  a  single  sheet  of  paper;  but  no 
single  sheet  of  paper  could  contain  all  its  glory. 
It  looks  at  first  glance  like  the  ground-map  of  a 
municipal  building  with  an  orphan  asylum  annex. 
Pinxter  sits  down  by  me  and  explains  it  all,  point- 
ing out  its  beauties  with  a  lead  pencil. 

"This  is  the  front  door,"  he  says,  "and  here 
is  the  vestibule.  I  Ve  made  that  good  and  roomy. 
I  hate  these  cramped  little  entrances,  don't  you? 
You  see,  1  have  left  space  here  for  a  hat-rack  and 
an  umbrella-stand,  and  on  the  other  side  there 
are  shelves,  and  a  little  cupboard  to  hang  coats 
in.  And  here,  you  see,  is  a  place  for  the  baby- 
carriage,  and  right  opposite  it  is  a  locker  for  my 
tennis  things.  Oh !  I  Ve  thought  it  all  out  Now 
we  come  into  the  hall.  I  like  a  good  big  hall, 
don't  you  ?  I  got  the  idea  for  this  one  from  one 
I  saw  in  the  house  of  one  of  those  Standard  Oil 
fellows  on  Long  Island  somewhere.  You  see,  I 
figured  to  get  it  big  enough  to  play  a  game  of 
badminton  in.  May  be  that 's  unnecessarily  large, 
but  that 's  better  than  being  all  cramped  up,  you 
know.  Now,  there  's  the  dining-room.  May  be 
I  might  have  cut  that  down  a  little  bit,  but  my 
great-aunt  has  left  me  her  mahogany  dining-table 
in  her  will,  and  that  seats  twenty-two  people,  you 
know.  .  Perhaps  we  should  n't  really  want  to  use 
it,  but  I  thought  I  would  take  it  into  considera- 
tion. Here  's  the  library :  I  have  n't  got  books 
enough  to  fill  it  yet;  but  you  must  think  of  the 


future,  you  know.  This  is  the  drawing-room, 
with  three  bay-windows  opening  on  the  garden. 
Won't  that  be  nice  in  Summer?  And  for  the 
Winter  I  've  designed  this  alcove  for  an  ingle- 
nook,  with  a  great  big  old-fashioned  fireplace; 
and  a  long  settee  on  each  side  of  it.  That  brings 
us  around  to  the  kitchen;  and  there  I  've  had  to 
cramp  a  little  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of 
space  —  but  ten  feet  by  eleven-and-a-half  is  quite 
ample,  don't  you  think  so  ?  This  little  odd  corner 
here  I  've  utilized  for  my  den  — just  a  cozy,  snug 
little  place,  big  enough  to  put  a  billiard  table  in 
if  I  should  want  to.  Oh !  I  tell  you,  I  've  used 
up  every  inch  of  space.  And  now  tell  me  can- 
didly, Sage,  do  you  think  that,  considering  what 
the  house  is  going  to  cost,  I  really  could  get  any- 
thing more  than  I  have  got  out  of  those  dimen- 
sions ?  " 

I  tell  him  that  I  don't  see  how  he  possibly 
could;  and  he  is  so  pleased  by  my  saying  so, 
that,  in  a  burst  of  unselfish  gratitude,  he  offers  to 
leave  the  plan  with  me  over  night  to  feast  my 
eyes  on  until  I  go  to  bed,  if  I  will  solemnly 
engage  to  give  it  to  him  at  the  station  in  the 
morning. 

And,  as  his  footsteps  go  out  of  hearing 
down  the  gravel-walk,  I  take  a  pencil  and  add 
up  the  little  figures  that  freckle  his  neatly  drawn 
plan  —  7x11,  9x14  —  and  so  on.  His  thirty- 
five  foot-square  house  is  72  feet  one  way  by 
92^  the  other. 

Next  Winter,  when  Mrs.  Sage  and  I  go  to 
call  upon  the  Pinxters  in  their  new  house,  Pinxter 
will  move  the  big  arm-chair  out  of  the  parlor  to 
make  room  for  unfolding  the  card-table,  and  he 

43 


•  ••\:M\-  MUM 

"Jr^   i1 


will  say  to  me,  in  a  casual  way :  "  You  see,  I  had 
to  make  a  few  minor  alterations  in  my  original 
plan.  But  if  ever  I  build  another  house — " 

That,  however,  is  looking  too  far  ahead. 
Even  at  the  plan-drawing  point,  Pinxter  is  only 
in  the  incipiency  of  the  disease.  There  are 
several  interesting  phases  to  record  before  Pinxter 
gets  where  he  is  able  to  talk  about  "  another 
house." 


MOVING    IN. 


MOVING     IN. 


;'  S  I  look  out  of  my  window,  my  eyes 
tempted  from  my  work  by  the  grate- 
ful sight  of  the  Spring-time  green,  1 
see  an  imposing  and  dignified  proces- 
sion pass  majestically,  at  a  dignified 
rate  of  progress,  along  the  highway. 
It  is  a  procession  of  four  gigantic 
vans,  like  small  barns  mounted  on  wheels. 
The  vans  are  beautifully  painted  in  the  bright- 
est and  shiniest  of  carriage  paint,  and  on  their 
ample  sides  they  bear  pictures  of  mighty  ware- 
houses —  warehouses  of  the  reddest  red  brick 
imaginable,  and  of  such  vast  dimensions  that  the 
perspective  looks  too  good  to  be  true.  These 
vans  are  drawn  by  huge,  well-groomed,  hand- 
somely caparisoned  Percheron  horses.  Each  van 
carries  a  crew  of  three  or  four  sturdy-looking 
men.  There  is  an  air  of  well-to-do  respectability 
about  the  whole  outfit;  and  the  great,  tightly 
closed  doors  at  the  back  of  the  vans  give  a  sug- 
gestion of  decent  privacy  and  seclusion,  which 
imply  a  proper  respect  for  the  goods  and  chattels 
of  a  home  on  the  move. 

Very  presently  the  procession  will  stop  at  its 
destination,  which  is  at  a  house  where  the  sign 
"To  Let"  has  just  been  removed,  and  the  stal- 
46 


wart-looking  men  will  jump  down  and  open  the 
great  doors,  and  dive  into  the  cavernous  depths 
within;  and  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  with  a 
wonderful  skill  and  precision,  they  will  shift  their 
bulky  cargo  of  trunks  and  furniture  from  van  to 
house,  depositing  every  article  according  to  direc- 
tions, and  being  so  obliging  and  pleasant  about  it 
all,  and  never  breaking  or  scratching  anything, 
that  the  delighted  owner  of  the  goods  and  chat- 
tels will  give  them  twice  as  much  beer-money  as 
he  had  intended  to.  Then  the  doors  will  be 
closed  again,  the  crews  will  mount  to  their 
perches,  and  the  imposing  procession  will  roll 
away  along  the  pleasant,  saloon-dotted  road  to 
the  great  city. 

Now,  this  is  all  as  it  should  be.  It  is  a 
proper,  orderly  and  economical  way  of  perform- 
ing a  task  whose  difficulties  and  annoyances  and 
general  cussedness  used,  once  upon  a  time,  to 
drive  strong  men  to  drink  and  desperation.  I 
am  not  the  least  inclined  to  sneer  at  the  pageant; 
I  only  wonder,  as  I  gaze,  how  a  people  who  do 
more  moving  from  house  to  house  than  any  other 
race  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  ever  managed  to 
get  along  without  a  system  that  saves  so  much 

47 


V   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    <y* 

discomfort,  loss  of  property,  petty  annoyance  and 
humiliation — yes,  bitter,  biting,  cruel  humiliation. 

I  sigh  as  I  look  back  across  the  years  and 
think  of  our  own  moving  in  —  or,  rather,  moving 
out  —  from  the  city.  Things  were  very  different 
then.  Nowadays  these  mighty  vans  roll  upon 
their  errands  of  mercy  from  early  Spring  to  late 
Fall;  and  even  a  comparatively  humble  family 
may  do  its  moving  with  dignity  and  style,  on  the 
shortest  notice.  But  when  I  moved  here  the 
tortures  of  May-day  were  still  in  vogue.  The 
man  who  wanted  to  move  had  to  hire  his  truck- 
man long  before  he  hired  his  house.  Prudent 
people  generally  went  to  the  truck-stands  about 
the  Christmas  season,  calculating  on  the  genial 
influences  of  the  time  to  soften  even  a  haughty 
truckman's  stony  heart,  and  move  him  to  throw  a 
dollar  or  two  off  his  price.  People  in  whom  the 
moving  habit  was  highly  developed  used  to  hire 
their  truckman  from  year  to  year;  but  up  in 
Harlem,  where  no  one  ever  keeps  a  house  for 
two  consecutive  years,  they  used  to  sell  options 
in  truckmen. 

The  truckman  whom  I  engaged  was  a  genial, 
active,  encouraging  person  with  whom  I  drove 
my  bargain  in  January.  He  promised  to  be  on 
hand  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  the  first  of 
May,  and  he  offered  to  turn  up  at  four  if  I  pre- 
ferred that  hour.  I  told  him  that  I  thought  it 
was  ostentatiously  early,  and  that  six  would  do. 
He  had  four  or  five  trucks  of  a  size  that  at  that 
time  was  considered  large;  but  in  case  they 
proved  inadequate  to  the  occasion  he  promised  to 
bring  his  brother-in-law's  one-horse  wagon,  to 
which  said  one  horse  was  attached.  He  entered 
48 


Moving  1fn. 


my  name  and  address  in  his  engagement  book; 
and,  for  further  surety,  I  made  a  point  of  passing 
that  way  about  once  a  month  and  recalling  my- 
self to  his  memory,  and  giving  him  one  of  my 
best  cigars. 

On  the  morning  of  the  first 
of  May  we  were  all  up 
and  dressed  at  six 
o'clock  and  wait- 
ing for  the  truck- 
man —  my  wife 
and  I  and  our 
whole  domestic 
staff,  and  my 
wife's  eighty -two 
year  old  uncle, 
who  would  come 
in  to  help  us 
move,  and  who 
had  to  be  fed  all 
day  with  light, 
unbreakable  ar- 
ticles to  potter  around  with.  Even  the  baby 
was  with  us — at  least,  she  was  crying,  and  I 
suppose  it  was  for  the  truckman.  She  had  cried 
for  every  conceivable  thing  else  already,  and  it 
did  n't  seem  as  if  there  were  anything  left  to 
cry  for  except  the  truckman. 

Six  o'clock  came,  and  seven,  but  no  truck- 
man. We  sat  around  on  trunks  tied  up  with 
clothes  -  line,  and  discussed  the  chances  of  his 
having  been  bribed  to  desert  us  for  the  service 
of  some  millionaire.  We  hung  out  of  the  win- 
dows and  strained  our  eyes  to  catch  the  ap- 
proach of  the  army  of  chariots.  Scores  of  truck- 

49 


^    £be  Suburban  Sage. 

men  passed,  but  ours  came  not.  When  it  came 
to  the  point  where  my  wife  began  to  ask  me 
whether  I  was  sure  I  had  given  him  the  right 
address,  I  felt  that  the  need  of  a  temporary  ab- 
sence was  clearly  indicated,  and  I  said  I  would 
go  to  the  truck-stand  and  see  what  had  become 
of  my  man.  At  nine  o'clock  I  went.  The  truck- 
stand  was  a  long  way  off,  and  the  day  was  hot 
and  sulky.  When  I  got  there  I  was  a  perspiring 
crucible  of  pent-up  profanity.  There  was  not  a 
truck  on  the  stand.  The  policeman  told  me  that 
my  man  had  left  early,  but  he  could  not  say 
whether  he  had  gone  in  my  direction  or  not. 
He  kindly  advised  me  not  to  wait  for  him  after 
twelve  o'clock. 

I  went  back  to  the  house.  I  found  the 
truckman  there  with  his  caravan.  He  explained 
that  I  had  given  him  the  wrong  address;  but  he 
saved  me  from  a  lasting  misunderstanding  with 
my  wife  by  adding  that  I  gave  him  the  wrong 
name.  The  truckman's  manner  had  entirely 
changed.  He  had  a  contemptuous  and  com- 
manding aspect;  and  there  was  the  flush  of  pride 
upon  his  face.  '  At  least,  I  thought  at  the  time  it 
was  pride.  I  tried  to  explain  to  him  the  ingen- 
ious scheme  my  wife  and  I  had  devised  of  ap- 
portioning the  furniture  of  a  given  room,  or  set 
of  rooms,  to  one  particular  truck.  His  manner 
was  so  abstracted  and  absent-minded  that  by  the 
time  I  had  got  him  to  show  any  interest  at  all, 
his  men  had  distributed  the  greater  portion  of 
the  furniture  among  the  various  trucks,  on  an 
entirely  inferior  system  of  their  own.  He  then 
told  me  that  he  had  moved  more  families  than 
I  had  ever  seen,  and  requested  me  to  keep  my 
50 


^    Moving  f  n.    ^ 

wife's  uncle  out  of  the  hall-way  unless  I  wanted 
somebody  to  let  a  feather-duster  fall  on  him  and 
kill  him. 

Most  of  the  morning  I  spent  in  keeping  the 
truckmen  away  from  a  little  back  hall  where  we 
had  stowed  away  a  lot  of  discarded  furniture  and 
household  belongings  generally,  which  we  had 
given  to  an  obliging  junk-man,  who  had  kindly 


consented  to  take  them  away.  It  was  quite 
an  accumulation  of  legless  chairs,  broken-down 
kitchen  furniture  and  worn-out  bedding,  and  it 
included  a  number  of  those  atrocities  in  the  way 
of  highly  and  cheaply  decorated  furniture  and 
idiotic  objects  of  ornamental  intent  which  find 
their  way  into  every  household,  even  those  that 
really  mean  well.  Some  of  those  truckmen  would 
pass  by  an  ebony  bookcase  six  feet  long  without 
seeing  it,  and  would  hurl  themselves  upon  that 
collection,  and  try  their  best  to  carry  away  a 
s  ST 


•^p-    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

wash-pitcher  without  a  handle  or  a  foot-rest  with 
a  broken  back.  My  unresting  vigilance  kept  the 
assortment  intact  until  the  last  truck  was  loaded ; 
and  then,  in  an  evil  hour,  I  turned  my  back 
for  a  few  minutes.  I  had  not  counted  upon 
the  brother-in-law  and  his  one-horse  wagon. 
He  arrived  about  this  time,  and,  finding  nothing 
else  to  make  a  load  of,  he  took  the  whole  dis- 
reputable-looking outfit  and  drove  merrily  away. 
By  this  time  everything  had  been  removed  from 
the  place;  the  servants,  with  the  exception  of 
the  nurse,  had  been  started  off  on  an  early  train 
to  our  new  suburban  home,  and  my  wife  and  I 
sat  down  to.  eat  a  bit  of  luncheon  —  on  the  floor. 
After  luncheon  I  sat  on  the  window  -  sill  and 
smoked  a  pipe.  My  wife  remarked  that  she  was 
thankful  that  we  had  got  out  before  the  new 
tenants  had  begun  to  move  in. 

"  We  have  n't  missed  it  by  much,"  I  said ; 
« for  there  are  their  trucks  in  the  street.  And 
do  you  remember,  my  dear,  rny  telling  you  that 
the  way  that  this  fool  of  a  landlord  was  treating 
his  tenants  would  result  in  lowering  the  charac- 
ter of  the  street  ?  Now  look  out  there  at  the 
furniture  of  these  people  who  are  going  to  move 
in  here.  Did  you  ever  see  anything  so  sicken- 
ingly  cheap  and  utterly  common  ?  Why,  it  's 
hardly  one  remove  from  what  you  'd  expect  to 
find  in  a  tenement  house ! " 

My  wife  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"  Why,  my  dear,  how  can  you  ? "  she  said. 

"Well,"  I  went  on,   "just  look  at  it.      Did 
you    ever    see    such    a    lot    of   cheap,   worn-out, 
poverty-ridden  stuff  to  move  into  a  nice,  smart- 
looking  house  like  this?" 
52 


y   Moving   Hn.    ^ 

"  Why,  dear,"  said  my  wife,  "  that  's  our 
furniture,  and  those  are  our  trucks.  They  were 
loaded  almost  an  hour  ago,  but  they  have  n't 
started  yet,  and  I  think  the  men  are  all  in  the 
saloon  on  the  corner." 

By  the  time  I  had  hurried  the  men  out  of 
the  saloon,  and  started  the  caravan,  it  was  too 
late  to  take  the  train  by  which  we  had  meant 
to  go  out,  and  we  found  that  there  would  be  no 
other  for  three  hours.  There  was  nothing  for 
it  but  to  take  another  railroad  to  a  larger  town 
five  miles  nearer  New  York,  and  hire  a  carriage 
to  ride  the  rest  of  the  way.  We  rather  liked 
the  prospect,  however,  for  we  thought  the  ride 
would  rest  us,  and  that  baby  could  take  her  nap 
in  the  carriage.  But  we  had  taken  too  cheerful 
and  optimistic  a  view  of  the  livery-stable  accom- 
modations of  suburban  towns,  as  we  realized 
when,  an  hour  later,  we  found  ourselves  jogging 
over  a  dusty  country  road  in  an  ancient  two- 
wheeled  herdic  coach,  drawn  by  a  lame  horse, 
and  driven  by  an  Irishman  who  had  more  time 
on  his  hands  than  he  knew  what  to  do  with. 


We  had  just  begun  the  ascent  of  a  hill  so 
long  that  it  seemed  to  end  nowhere  in  particular 


y-   £be  Suburban  Sacje.    ^ 

this  side  of  the  zenith,  when  I  heard  a  sound  of 
creaking  wheels,  and,  looking  up,  I  saw  ahead  of 
me  a  caravan  of  heavily-laden  trucks ;  and  a  chill 
struck  to  my  heart  when  I  realized  that  the 
furniture  on  them  was  OUR  furniture.  It  was  no 
use  my  saying  to  myself  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
our  furniture  was  very  good  and  comparatively 
new,  and  that  all  furniture  looks  at  its  worst  in  the 
process  of  moving.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I 
had  never  seen  such  a  wretched,  pitiful,  worn, 
scratched,  battered,  faded  and  frayed  collection 
of  cheap  and  nasty  household  articles  in  the 
whole  course  of  my  life.  That  furniture  had 
been  very  much  admired  by  our  visitors  when 
each  article  stood  on  its  proper  end,  and  was 
kept  up  to  the  highest  standard  of  domestic  clean- 
liness. But  with  its  backs  and  bottoms  and 
wrong  sides  generally  exposed  to  the  public  gaze, 
with  its  legs  sticking  up  in  the  air,  with  the  half 
of  its  castors  jolted  out,  tied  up  with  knotted 
shreds  of  rope,  with  pieces  of  worn  counterpane 
stuffed  here  and  there  to  prevent  chafing,  and  with 
a  thick  coating  of  roadside  dust  all  over  it,  it 
looked  very  much  like  the  outfit  of  an  emigrant 
gang  that  had  busted  up  in  Kansas,  and  was 
coming  home  regardless  of  appearances.  Just  as 
we  drew  up  even  with  it,  one  of  the  wagons  gave 
a  lift  to  a  Polish  Jew  peddler  with  a  bundle  of 
second-hand  clothing  tied  up  in  a  red  table-cloth. 
He  stretched  himself  out  on  the  top  of  the  load, 
on  something  that  I  subsequently  discovered  to 
be  the  baby's  crib,  and  assumed  an  air  of  easy 
proprietorship.  I  asked  my  driver  to  whip  up, 
and  he  told  me  he  would  as  soon  as  he  got  to  the 
top  of  the  hill.  At  the  top  of  the  hill  we  came 

54 


1fn. 


to  the  town,  and  drove  together  down  the  princi- 
pal residential  street  to  my  house.  As  we  drew 
up,  my  wife  grasped  my  arm  convulsively  and 
pointed  to  the  front  lawn.  The  servants  had  not 
yet  arrived  to  open  the  house,  having  left  the 
train,  with  the  unerring  instinct  of  their  kind,  at 
a  station  several  miles  away;  and  the  brother-in- 
law  of  my  truckman,  being  the  lightest  laden  of 
the  moving  throng,  had  arrived  an  hour  before 
anybody  else,  had  deposited  his  entire  load  of 
bric-a-brac  on  the  front  lawn,  and  was  now  wait- 
ing to  be  paid. 

It  was  the  close  of  a  beautiful  May  after- 
noon, and  in  the  pleasant  twilight  a  number  of 
people  were  going  home  from  the  first  tennis 
practice  of  a  field  club  in  the  immediate  vicinity. 
I  saw  at  once  that  the  place  teemed  with  life  and 
vivacity;  and  yet  I  did  not  feel  entirely  sure  that 
1  should  not  have  preferred  something  more 
retired  and  secluded. 


A    WATER-COLOR    HOUSE. 


57 


A     WATER-COLOR     HOUSE. 


HE  Pinxters  are  really  building.  Indeed, 
they  are  quite  a  long  way  on  in  their 
troubles.  There  is  no  more  drawing  of 
plans  on  the  back  of  envelopes :  they  are 
in  bondage  to  a  professional  architect, 
and  to  a  professional  builder  in  league 
with  a  professional  stone-mason.  They 
are  not  the  same  lithe  young  things  that 
they  were  a  few  months  ago;  but  they 
know  more. 
First,  Pinxter  bought  his  lot.  Then  came  a 
short  period  of  rose-colored  hope.  As  soon  as 
he  had  got  his  deed,  Pinxter  became  convinced 
that  he  had  got  the  very  best  lot  in  the  very  best 
neighborhood  of  the  very  best  town  in  the  world, 
and  he  wondered  at  his  own  acuteness  in  doing 
it.  Every  afternoon  when  he  came  home  from 
business  Mrs.  Pinxter  a*id  he  wandered  about 
that  lot,  feeling  their  ownership  in  the  very  soles 
of  their  feet.  They  visited  it  in  all  sorts  of 
weather;  they  brought  parties  of  friends  to  visit 
it.  Pinxter  never  allowed  any  postponement  on 
account  of  the  weather.  He  asked  everybody's 
advice  about  the  proper  location  for  the  house. 
He  and  Mrs.  Pinxter  selected  a  number  of  pos- 
sible sites  and  marked  them  out  with  stakes. 


They  let  their  friends  drive  stakes,  too.  They 
got  so  many  stakes  in  the  ground  that  after  a 
while  passers  by  used  to  stop  and  wonder  what 
sort  of  a  camp-meeting  it  could  have  been  that 
was  so  free  with  its  tent-pegs, 

Then  they  had  a  great  time  deciding  upon 
an  architect;  but  when  they  did  settle  on  their 
man,  they  were  delighted  to  find  that  they  had 
made  exactly  the  right  choice.  They  found  him 
an  uncommonly  pleasant  person.  He  let  them 
tell  him  all  their  ideas  —  a  practice  in  which 
their  friends  had  not  encouraged  them  much  of 
late.  He  took  the  kindest  sort  of  interest  in  the 
whole  business;  and  he  suggested  all  sorts  of 
little  comforts  and  conveniences  which  need  not 
add  at  all  to  the  expense  if  they  were  put  in  at 

S9 


Suburban  Sa0e,   ^ 

the  first  instance,  but  which  would  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  wealth  itself  after  the  house  was  com- 
pleted. They  had  thought  at  one  time  of  dis- 
pensing with  an  architect,  and  building  the  house 
out  of  a  book;  and  they  shuddered  as  they 
thought  that  in  that  case  they  would  never  have 
known  of  all  these  delightful  possibilities.  Then 
the  architect  brought  them  a  little  water-color 
sketch  —  something  he  had  dashed  off  to  give 
them  an  idea  of  what  he  thought  they  would  like. 
It  represented  a  most  charming  little  cottage, 
with  a  great  many  kinds  of  roof,  and  it  had  the 
most  alluring  dormer  windows  and  round  win- 
dows and  lattice  windows,  and  it  had  a  pretty 
little  porch  with  big  benches  at  the  side,  and 
with  a  trellis  with  vines  clambering  over  it. 
Then  there  was  a  lawn  with  flower-beds  on  it, 
and  a  neat  little  driveway  with  a  pony-phaeton 
standing  at  the  door,  presumably  waiting  for  Mrs. 
Pinxter.  Back  of  the  house  were  stately  trees, 
and  a  deep-blue  sky  hung  over  all,  with  fleecy 
white  clouds  upon  its  bosom.  A  little  more  and 
you  could  have  heard  the  birds  sing. 

Of  course  that  settled  it.  It  is  true  that 
there  were  no  trees  on  their  lot;  and  that  the 
architect  had  made  no  provision  for  drying  clothes 
anywhere  except  in  the  back  yard.  But  from 
the  moment  that  Pinxter  saw  that  picture  their 
doom  was  sealed.  Then  came  the  estimates  and 
contracts  and  specifications,  and  a  very  lucid  and 
precise  explanation  of  the  system  of  first,  second 
and  third  payments,  and  so  on.  This  was  the 
first  jarring  note  in  the  lovely  symphony  of  hope. 

There  were  more  jarring  notes  later  on  when 
it  came  to  cutting  down  the  estimates  to  fit  the 
60 


^   B  Idater « color  Ibouse.    ^ 

appropriation.  They  never  thought,  poor  children, 
of  cutting  down  on  the  external  beauty  of  the 
cottage  in  the  picture.  The  fancy  windows,  and 
the  roofs  with  their  valleys  and  peaks  and  gables 
and  angles  and  what-not,  and  the  ornamental 
porch,  all  cost  money — a  great  deal  of  money; 
and  yet  it  never  once  occurred  to  them  that  the 
one  house  that  they  best  knew  and  best  loved 
and  admired  was  the  simple,  unpretentious  old 
hip-roofed  homestead  where  Mrs.  Pinxter's  mother 
lived,  and  where  Pinxter  had  done  his  courting. 
There  was  n't  a  fancy  window  in  that  building, 
and  a  ten-dollar  bill  would  have  paid  for  all  the 
tinsmith's  work  on  the  roof;  but  its  simple,  well- 
chosen  lines  had  a  home -like  beauty  that  had 
endeared  them  to  generation  after  generation. 

No;    the   Pinxters  made    their   architectural 
economies  out  of  the  needs  of  their  domestic  life. 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

They  cut  down  a  foot  on  this  room  and  six  inches 
on  that.  They  made  their  kitchen  range  so  small 
that  their  joints  of  meat  would  have  to  be  meas- 
ured to  fit  the  oven.  They  substituted  cast-iron 
fixtures  for  brass,  and  they  decided  on  a  cheap 
grade  of  window  glass.  They  agreed  upon  ready- 
made  mantels  and  single  floors;  and  they  decided 
to  go  without  a  laundry,  although  they  retained  a 
butler's  pantry  that  could  not  have  been  more 
commodious  had  they  owned  an  ancestral  butler. 
And  they  ordered  for  the  bath-room  a  tub  so  short 
that  Pinxter  could  only  sit  in  it  in  the  shape  of  a 
letter  N,  and  take  his  morning  bath  in  sections. 

Then  comes  a  hole  in  the  ground  in  the 
middle  of  the  lot;  and  then  the  masons  begin  to 
fill  this  with  a  stone  lining,  stopping  short  for  the 
day  every  time  that  an  April  shower  casts  a  two- 
minutes'  sprinkle  upon  the  earth.  Then  up  goes 
a  bewildering  lot  of  hemlock  framework  before 
Pinxter  has  a  chance  to  find  out  for  himself 
whether  it  conforms  to  the  plans  or  not. 

About  this  time  a  chill  comes  over  the 
cordial  relations  between  the  Pinxters  and  their 
architect.  They  begin  to  be  disappointed  in  him. 
When  they  engaged  him  to  superintend  the  con- 
struction of  their  house  they  fancied  him  going 
merrily  to  his  work  with  the  earliest  laborer,  and 
watching  over  everything  with  an  eagle  eye  until 
the  setting  sun  released  him  from  his  important 
task.  When  they  find  that  he  makes  an  inspec- 
tion about  once  a  week,  and  then  only  exchanges 
a  few  friendly  technicalities  with  the  master  mason, 
and  asks  him  how  soon  he  is  going  to  start  that 
next  job  down  the  street,  they  are  surprised, 
grieved  and  indignant. 

62 


They  appeal  to  the  architect's  friends  to 
rouse  him  to  a  sense  of  duty,  and  to  a  realization 
of  the  great  professional  opportunity  he  is  miss- 
ing. It  gives  them  a  certain  shock  to  learn  that 
the  architect  had  not  calculated  to  support  him- 
self, his  wife  and  a  growing  family,  for  a  whole 
year  on  the  $250  that  he  is  to  make  out  of  the 
Pinxter's  job,  and  that  he  is  erecting  houses  for 
several  other  people,  and  will  erect  more  if  he 
gets  the  chance.  Later  on  they  are  better  satis- 
fied with  him.  He  comes  oftener  and  assumes 
a  more  active  command  of  the  work.  But  even 
then  they  find  him  a  different  man.  They  dis- 
cover that  very  few  of  his  brilliant  suggestions 
have  been  incorporated  in  the  plans  and  speci- 


Suburban  Sa0e.    -y- 

fications.  When  they  appeal  to  him  to  repair 
these  omissions  he  tells  them  coldly  that  they 
ought  to  have  seen  to  it  before,  and  that  if  they 
want  any  alterations  they  must  pay  for  them  as 
extras.  When  Mrs.  Pinxter  tells  him  that  the 
closet  in  her  room  is  not  large  enough,  he  tells 
her  that  it  is  larger  than  any  closet  he  has  ever 
built.  When  Pinxter  finds  out  that  he  can  not 
put  his  Chippendale  sideboard  between  the  din- 
ing-room windows,  he  is  told  that  a  Chippen- 
dale sideboard  would  n't  match  the  room,  any- 
how, and  that  he  had  better  get  another.  Not 
room  —  sideboard.  It  does  not  take  the  Pinx- 
ters  long  to  learn  that  the  moving  of  a  window 
two  inches  one  way  or  the  other  will  utterly 
destroy  the  whole  artistic  scheme  of  the  archi- 
tect—  that  is,  after  the  contracts  are  once  signed. 
After  the  contracts  are  once  signed,  architecture 
is  always  a  delicate  and  fragile  art,  and  should 
be  dealt  with  reverently  by  people  who  can  not 
afford  extras. 

The  Pinxters  get  this  idea  firmly  impressed 
on  their  minds  when  they  make  what  is  termed 
a  "  kick  "  about  the  front-stairs.  They  and  their 
friends  can  not  see  that  a  newel  post  about  as  big 
as  the  capstan  of  a  man-of-war  harmonizes  with 
a  lead-pencil  rail  and  baluster.  The  architect 
stakes  his  professional  reputation  that  the  propor- 
tions are  artistically  correct.  He  also  refers  them 
to  the  undeniable  fact  that  the  dimensions  are 
those  given  in  the  specifications,  and  that  they 
ought  to  have  objected  before  accepting  the  lat- 
ter. It  is  of  no  use  their  saying  that  they  did 
n't  know  that  the  structure  would  look  like  that 
when  it  was  done.  Neither  did  he.  He  is  a 

f>4 


young  architect;  and  he  has  got  to  practice  on 
stair- cases  if  he  ever  wants  to  get  them  right. 

Pinxter  is  on  his  third  payment  now,  I 
believe;  and  I,  somehow,  feel  as  if  true  delicacy 
ought  to  keep  me  from  obtruding  my  society 
upon  him  unnecessarily.  But  I  wonder  with  a 
friendly  interest  how  he  will  come  out  of  the 
game  of  house-building  into  which  he  has  put 
his  poor  little  stakes. 

What  will  come  to  him  from  his  speculation, 
undertaken  in  almost  childish  ignorance  and  in- 
experience ?  Will  he  get  a  cozy,  comfortable 
little  home  that  he  will  learn  to  love  the  more 
dearly  as  the  days  go  by  ?  or  will  he  have  a 
poor  make  -  shift,  misshapen  habitation  on  his 


Suburban  Sage. 


hands  that  will  make  him  for  years  discontented 
at  home,  and  envious  under  his  neighbor's  roof? 
Who  can  tell?  It  is  a  mere  chance  eicher 
way.  But  do  not  blame  poor  Pinxter  if  he 
yielded  to  a  natural  weakness  of  human  nature, 
and  let  a  pretty  picture  of  a  pretty  house  tempt 
him  to  forget  that  a  man  builds  the  inside  of 
a  home  for  himself,  and  the  outside  for  his  neigh- 
bor across  the  way.  How  many  of  us  are  wiser  ? 
Did  not  the  makers  of  fashion-plates  long  ago 
learn  to  make  the  women  in  their  costumes 
graceful  and  beautiful,  and  the  men  stately,  tall 
and  deep-chested?  And,  shall  we  blame  the 
architect  if  he  tries  to  set  off  his  design  with 
the  attractions  of  ideal  surroundings  ?  No,  in- 
deed !  If  your  wife  goes  shopping  to  buy  a 
Winter  wrap,  does  the  head  of  the  cloak  depart- 
ment look  among  the  saleswomen  for  one  just 


^   B  TKHater  =  Color  Ibouse.    y 

as  short  and  stout,  or  one  just  as  tall  and  angu- 
lar as  his  customer?  No,  no!  He  calls  up  a 
young  lady  with  a  perfect  figure  and  the  car- 
riage of  a  ^  queen,  and  he  drapes  the  garment 
over  her  faultless  shoulders. 

It  is  human  nature  all  around,  and  that  is 
why  so  many  people  are  living  to-day  as  the 
Pinxters  will  live  until  their  house  is  finished, 
in  a  water-color  picture  of  a  dainty  dwelling, 
enshrined  in  luxury  and  foliage,  with  a  pony 
phaeton  waiting  at  the  door,  and  with  a  front- 
yard  where  a  lawn  is  ever  green  under  the  per- 
petual green  skies,  and  where,  in  trim  beds,  the 
springtide  forcythia  and  the  hardy  Fall  chrysan- 
themum blossom  side  by  side  in  innocent  and 
unconscious  defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature. 


THE    POINTERS. 


THE     POINTERS. 


N  Summer  Saturdays  the  Suburbanite  hast- 
ens from  town  on  the  midday  train; 
and  Mrs.  Suburbanite  arrays  herself  in 
cool  and  dainty  garments  and  goes  out 
on  the  lawn  to  meet  him.  On  other 
days  of  the  week,  when  he  comes  home 
just  in  time  for  dinner,  she  meets  him  in 
the  front  hall  and  says:  "Oh,  is  that  you, 
dear  ?  Hurry  up  and  get  ready  for  dinner,  please, 
for  your  train  is  late  to-night."  But  on  Saturday 
she  goes  out  on  the  lawn  and  says:  "Oh,  dar- 
ling, I  'm  so  glad  you  Ve  come !  I  was  so  afraid 
you  would  n't  get  the  train."  I  don't  know  what 
makes  the  difference,  but  I  suspect  that  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  swivel  silk  and  French  hat  and 
fancy  tan*  shoes  about  it. 

And  pretty  soon  the  Suburbanite  gets  into 
his  Summer  bravery  of  white  flannel  and  colored 
shirt,  and,  standing  with  Mrs.  Suburbanite  on  his 
front  steps,  he  looks  up  and  down  the  pleasant 
street,  comparing  his  lawn  with  his  neighbor's. 
According  to  suburban  etiquette,  he  must  always 
praise  his  neighbor's  lawn  and  speak  slightingly 
of  his  own;  but  in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  believes 
that  his  own  is  the  best  in  sight.  From  this 
70 


harmless  and  gratifying  amusement  he  is  startled 
by  his  wife's  indignant  voice. 

"Oh,  Henry!"  she  cries;  "there's  a  lot  of 
those  horrid  Pointers  coming  up  the  road.  They 
must  have  come  out  on  the  train  with  you." 

"  Gad ! "  says  Henry,  in  deep  disgust ;  "  look 
at  the  pair  of  them  over  the  way ! " 

On  the  walk  at  the  opposite  side  of  the 
street  two  people  are  slowly  passing  —  a  man  and 
a  woman.  Though  their  dress  proclaims  them 
from  the  city,  they  loiter  and  gawk  like  country 
folk;  and  they  stare  at  everything  they  see  about 
them  like  people  wandering  through  a  waxwork 
show.  The  stare  is  sufficiently  frank  and  undis- 
guised and  contemptuously  careless  enough  to 
irritate  a  hippopotamus  if  it  were  directed  at  the 
thickest  spot  on  his  hide. 

7f 


•^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage,    y 

But  the  stare  is  forgotten  —  wiped  into 
oblivion  by  what  comes  next.  The  male  person 
of  the  pair  extends  his  arm,  points  his  forefinger 
straight  in  the  direction  of  the  modest  front  porch 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Suburbanite,  and  demands  of 
his  companion : 

"There!   how  do  you  like  that  one?" 

The  female  person  gives  one  brief  glance  in 
the  direction  indicated,  and  then  replies  in  ring- 
ing tones  of  contempt: 

"  I  think  it 's  perfectly  hideous !  I  would  n't 
live  in  it  if  you  gave  it  to  me.  Why,  the  little 
one  with  the  red  roof  is  better  than  that ! " 

They  pass  on  down  the  street;  but  even 
when  they  have  got  as  far  as  the  corner  their 
conversation  is  still  audible  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Suburbanite.  The  female  person  inquires  in  loud 
but  languid  tones : 

"I  wonder  what  sort  of  people  live  in  a 
town  like  this,  anyhow?"  and  the  male  responds, 
in  clear  and  vigorous  tones : 

"Oh!  pretty  devilish  common,  I  should 
think." 

* 
*  * 

Is  it  really  possible  that  there  are  such 
people  in  the  civilized  world?  Oh,  yes;  there 
are  plenty  of  them,  and  they  are  not  bad  people 
at  all.  Indeed,  they  are  not,  at  home,  rude 
people,  even.  In  the  city  they  would  never 
think  of  pointing  their  forefingers  at  a  man's  front 
door,  and  commenting  upon  the  appearance  of 
his  dwelling  in  any  way  that  would  attract  his 
attention,  —  nor  do  they  mean  to  do  so  now  and 
here.  The  unfamiliar  scene,  the  novel  distances, 

72 


^    Gbe  pointers,   ^r 

the  sense  of  a  wholly  unfamiliar  mode  of  life  — 
all  these  things  make  them  feel  as  though  they 
were  walking  in  a  world  in  which  they  had  no 
part,  and  they  hardly  feel  at  the  first  as  if  it  were 
just  as  real  an  e very-day  life  as  their  own.  And 
then,  the  silence  of  the  country  cheats  them  into 
talking  loudly,  as  it  does  every  one. 

For  the  rest,  their  intent  is  not  at  all  offens- 
ive. They  are  simply  "  Pointers "  —  a  married 
couple  of  moderate  means,  who,  having  some 
idea  that  they  may,  at  some  time,  be  obliged  to 
move  from  the  city  to  the  country,  have  come  out 
to  look  about  them  and  see  how  they  would  like 
it  on  the  whole. 

It  is  all  a  matter  of  speculative  unreality  to 
them,  and  they  no  more  think  that  they  are  seen 
and  heard  in  their  finger-pointing  and  too  frank 
criticism  than — well,  than  you  did,  my  dear  Mr. 
Urban,  when  you  did  pretty  much  the  same  thing 
in  a  university  town  in  Holland,  where  every 
second  man  on  the  street  spoke  English  quite  as 
well  as  you  did. 

The  Pointer  has  all  seasons  for  his  own. 
He  has  been  known  to  make  his  explorations  in 
midwinter,  and  I  have  encountered  one  cheerful 
soul  who  never  went  house- hunting  in  the  country 
except  on  a  day  of  genuinely  mean  rainy  or 
snowy  weather.  He  said  that  if  you  could  see 
anything  to  like  in  a  suburban  town  under  such 
conditions,  it  must  be  a  pretty  good  town  when 
you  came  to  try  it  dry  and  comfortable.  That 
man,  I  believe,  is  still  living  in  town.  But,  of 
course,  late  Spring,  early  Summer,  and  the  first 
of  the  Fall  are  the  chosen  times  of  the  Pointer — 
especially  if  he  is  a  Pointer  of  limited  means.  It 

73 


is  always  pleasant  to  take  an  afternoon  stroll 
through  a  pretty  country  town;  and  this  luxury 
the  Pointer  may  enjoy  at  no  greater  cost  than  the 
railway  fare  for  himself  and  his  wife.  For,  if  they 
arrive  in  the  morning,  they  generally  bring  their 
luncheon  with  them  in  a  paste-board  box,  and  eat 
it  in  the  railway  station,  to  the  great  disgust  of 
the  station  agent.  That  is,  they  do  this  when 
they  are  new  beginners  at  the  pointing  game  — 
Greenpointers,  so  to  speak.  Afterward  they  ad- 

74 


Gbe  pointers, 


vance  in  knowledge  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
game.  And,  after  they  have  had  their  first  free 
ride  in  a  real  estate  agent's  carriage,  they  begin 
to  see  that  there  is  something  more  in  the  pastime 
of  pointing  than  trailing  aimlessly 
around  on  foot  and  staring  at 
the  outside  of  other  people's 
homes  —  or  else,  peeping 
furtively  into  the  dismal 
interiors  of  empty  houses. 
There  are  free  rides  in 
it;  cakes  and  ale  in  it, 
free,  too;  and,  more 
than  this,  there  is  con- 
sideration and  respect 
and  even  deference  and 
delicate  flattery  —  un- 
deserved, it  is  true; 
unearned,  enjoyed  only 
for  a  brief  hour,  and 
then  on  false  pretenses 
—  but  sweet,  sweet, 
sweet  on  the  tongue 
while  the  taste  lasts. 


For,  sooner  or  later,  there  comes  a  Friday 
afternoon  when  the  Pointer  climbs  to  his  airy  flat 
with  a  lightsome  step  and  a  beaming  countenance. 

"My  dear,"  he  says  to  his  wife,  "we'll  go 
and  look  at  some  out-of-town  houses  to-morrow, 
but  this  time  we  '11  go  in  style.  I  Ve  struck  a 
real  estate  man  downtown,  a  man  who  's  interested 
in  property  at  Howsonlotville,  and  he  's  going  to 
TS 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sage,    -y* 

take  us  out  to  see  the  place.  It  won't  cost  us 
even  our  fares;  he  puts  up  for  everything,  and 
when  we  get  there  he  blows  us  off  to  luncheon  at 
his  own  house,  and  in  the  afternoon  he  drives  us 
all  around,  and  shows  us  all  there  is  to  be  seen. 
Great  scheme,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"But,  my  dear,"  timidly  remonstrates  his 
wife,  "is  it  quite  right,  do  you  think?  You  know 
we  have  n't  the  least  idea  of  going  to  Howson- 
lotville  to  live,  and  would  n't  it  be,  somehow,  like 
getting  a  good  time  on  false  pretenses  ?  " 

Then  the  Pointer  explains  to  his  wife  that 
women  don't  know  the  first  thing  about  busi- 
*ness.  This  is  entirely  a  matter  of  business  with 
the  real  estate  man.  He  takes  such  chances 
right  along  in  the  hope  of  getting  his  property 
known.  It  is  simply  an  advertisement  of  his 
business  —  nothing  else  —  just  the  way  the  gro- 
cer sends  you  a  sample  cake  of  soap  or  a  can 
of  some  new  brand  of  baking-powder.  And  in 
the  end,  of  course,  she  says  she  supposes  that 
he  knows  best. 

From  that  day  on  their  doom  is  sealed. 
A  new  era  dawns  for  them.  They  travel  out 
to  Howsonlotville  on  the  family  ticket  of  the 
agent  of  the  great  Howsonlot  estate.  They 
accept  of  the  agent's  hospitable  board,  eat  the 
excellent  luncheon  he  has  provided,  show  a  re- 
fined appreciation  of  his  good  wine;  talk  casu- 
ually  and  carelessly  of  their  rich  relations,  and 
make  incidental  mention  of  horses  they  have 
owned.  In  the  afternoon,  perched  high  and 
proud  on  the  agent's  drag,  they  look  down  with 
a  feeling  of  infinite  satisfaction  upon  the  less 
experienced  Pointers  wandering  about  on  foot 
76 


^   Gbe  pointers*   ^ 

and  unattended.  Then  they  go  and  look  at  a 
house  which  they  never  in  the  world  could 
afford  to  take  ;  and  condescendingly  promise  to 
give  its  merits  their  kind  consideration  over 
Sunday.  This  is  not  entirely  duplicity ;  it 
sometimes  takes  quite  a  while  to  trump  up  an 
insuperable  objection  to  a  pretty  good  house. 

Once  embarked  in  this  fascinating  game, 
the  true  Pointer  never  tires  of  pitting  his  in- 
genuity and  evasive  skill  against  the  cunning 
of  the  real  estate  agent.  Of  course  the  ulti- 
mate fate  of  "every  gambler  lies  ahead  of  him. 
For  a  longer  or  shorter  time  he  may  enjoy  free 
luncheons,  free  drives,  and  all  the  consideration 
which  the  real  estate  operator  keeps  on  tap  for 
his  victims  until  he  has  them  safe.  But,  be  it 
soon  or  late,  the  day  will  surely  come  when 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^r 

he  is  cornered,  when  the  compromising  word 
is  said,  when  he  sees  his  name  on  an  innocent- 
looking  "  memorandum  of  agreement  "  —  and 
then  it  is  all  over  before  he  knows  it.  The 
fatal  Deed  and  the  ravenous  Bond  and  Mort- 
gage are  signed,  sealed  and  delivered ;  his 
bridges  are  burnt  behind  him,  he  stands  trem- 
bling and  apprehensive  at  the  beginning  of  a 
new  life;  and  the  Pointer  has  become  the  last 
thing  that  he  ever  meant  to  be  —  a  Suburbanite. 


THE    FURNACE. 


THE     FURNACE. 


HEN  I  first  moved  into  the  country, 
(I  have  told  this  story  before;  but 
only  in  the  comparative  privacy  of 
the  poetic  form,)  I  inquired  for  a  suit- 
able man  to  take  charge  of  my  furnace. 
One  was  recommended  to  me,  and  we 
opened  negotiations,  which  were  conducted 
warily  on  both  sides;  for  each  of  us  was  wonder- 
ing how  much  the  other  knew  about  a  furnace, 
and  each  of  us  was  conscious  of  plenty  of  igno- 
rance to  betray.  Finally,  the  man  asked  me  how 
much  time  I  wanted  him  to  devote  to  the  fur- 
nace. Here  I  turned  and  rent  him.  I  told  him 
that  if  he  were  applying  for  the  post  of  furnace 
tender,  he  ought  to  know  how  much  time  it  was 
his  duty  to  devote  to  that  particular  furnace. 
This  disconcerted  him,  and  he  said  that  he  had 
asked  the  question  only  because  it  had  occurred 
to  him  that  I  might  want  him  to  stay  with  the 
furnace  all  day.  I  asked  him  why  he  should 
stay  with  the  furnace  all  day,  and  he  said:  "To 
prevent  its  blowing  up." 

Now,   in   my  simple   city  ignorance    I    sup- 
posed that  that  man  was  simply  trying  to  impose 
upon  me  and  to  get  a  profitable  job  for  himself; 
but  I  have  since  come  to  know  that  he  merely 
80 


reflected,  in  his  uneducated,  exaggerated  way,  the 
attitude  of  all  suburbanites  toward  that  domestic 
Moloch,  the  Furnace. 

The  furnace  is,  for  eight  or  nine  months  in 
the  year,  the  heart  of  domestic  life,  and  it  may 
be  said  to  feed  the  pulse  of  all  suburban  con- 
versation. Even  the  question  of  domestic  service 
has  to  yield  to  it  in  importance,  as  a  topic;  for 
you  may,  or  you  may  not,  at  any  given  time, 
have  a  cook,  but  you  always  have  a  coal-bill. 

Now,  I  wish  to  do  all  that  lies  in  my  power 
to  reprehend  this  tendency.  It  not  only  imparts 
to  suburban  conversation  an  ashy  and  uninterest- 

81 


Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

ing  flavor,  but  it  spoils  the  furnace.  Long  ex- 
perience has  taught  me,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
affirm  it,  that  furnaces  are  just  like  children  — 
you  can  spoil  them  and  set  them  all  wrong  in 
life  by  making  too  much  fuss  over  them;  by 
coddling  and  petting  them;  by  paying  attention 
to  their  little  whims  and  fancies;  and,  above  all, 
by  talking  about  them  to  their  faces  in  the  pres- 
ence of  visitors  and  strangers.  You  all  know 
how  it  is  with  children :  if  little  Claribel  is  in  the 
room,  and  you  say  to  the  lady  who  is  visiting 
you: 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  what  to  do!  little 
Claribel  is  so  sensitive !  Do  you  know,  the  other 
day  she  wept  for  five  hours  together  because  the 
cat  killed  a  little  bird  on  the  lawn!" 

Do  you  know  what  happens  after  that? 
Little  ClaribeFs  one  idea  is  to  beat  her  own  rec- 
ord for  sensitiveness  by  weeping  six  hours  over 
the  next  dead  bird  she  finds;  and  if  she  can't 
find  any  other  way  of  attracting  attention  and 
winning  praise  for  her  delicate  susceptibilities, 
she  will  drop  a  tear  on  a  deceased  tumblebug, 
just  to  attract  a  moment's  notice.  In  the  same 
way,  if  you  tell  your  visitor  in  the  youngster's 
hearing,  that  your  dear  little  Reginald  has  such 
a  wonderful  flow  of  spirits  that  it  seems  impos- 
sible for  him  to  control  himself —  why,  you  must 
not  be  surprised  if  Reginald  seizes  the  oppor- 
tunity to  kick  his  foot -ball  through  the  parlor 
window,  by  way  of  showing  the  exuberance  of 
his  spirits,  and  the  impossibility  of  restraining 
them.  Well,  you  can  spoil  a  furnace  much  in 
the  same  way  as  you  can  spoil  a  child. 

Do  not  for  an  instant  imagine  that  I  began 
82 


my  suburban  life  with  any  superiority  of  knowl- 
edge over  my  neighbors  —  at  least,  so  far  as  the 
management  of  a  furnace  was  concerned.  In 
many  other  respects  I  knew  more  than  they  did 
—  although  I  am  not  using  so  much  knowledge 
now.  I  treated  my  furnace  with  the  same  famil- 
iar indulgence  and  familiarity;  and  gave  it  just 
as  absurd  an  idea  of  its  own  importance  as  did 
the  most  thoughtless  of  those  about  me.  Many 
and  many  a  time  has  that  furnace  heard  me 
talking  through  the  thin  floor  that  separates  the 
cellar  from  the  ground  story  —  telling  of  its  ways 
and  its  fancies;  of  its  extravagance  in  coal  one 
week,  and  of  its  strict  economy  the  next;  of  its 
entire  unwillingness  to  work  in  an  east  wind,  and 
its  furious  enthusiasm  to  roast  the  house  every 


^   ftbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

time  there  was  a  breath  from  the  south.  Be- 
ginning that  way,  no  wonder  I  turned  the  poor 
thing's  head. 

But  this  was  only  the  least  of  the  foolishness 
with  which  I  encouraged  that  furnace  to  mis- 
behave. I  discharged  the  man  whom  I  had  first 
engaged,  to  take  care  of  it ;  not  because  I  could 
find  any  real  fault  with  him,  but  because  he 
seemed  to  me  to  have  no  real  sense  of  the  seri- 
ousness of  his  responsibility.  I  thought  he 
treated  the  furnace  in  a  slighting  and  disrespect- 
ful manner;  and  I  did  n't  like  the  way  that  he 
slammed  the  door  after  he  had  put  the  coal  in. 
I  hired  a  small  boy  to  sleep  in  the  house,  so  that 
he  might  be  at  the  service  of  the  furnace  day  and 
night.  I  can  say  for  the  boy  that  he  carried  out 
one  part  of  his  contract.  He  slept  in  the  house. 

It  was  I  who  went  down  late  at  night  after 
I  had  got  home  from  a  dinner  or  a  dance,  or  a 
trip  to  the  city  to  hear  the  opera,  and  dove  into 
the  cellar  to  study  the  immediate  needs  of  that 
furnace,  drowsily  summoning  to  my  aid  what  small 
scraps  of  knowledge  I  possessed  about  draughts 
and  heat-units  and  cold  air  supply  —  only  in  the 
end  to  stir  up  something  or  other,  I  did  n't  know 
why;  to  let  down  something,  about  the  end  and 
aim  of  which  I  knew  still  less;  and  to  make  some 
combination  of  dampers  and  slides  and  doors,  for 
which  I  never  in  the  world  could  have  offered  the 
slightest  reason. 

Of  course,  in  my  earlier  suburban  days,  I 
was  even  more  foolish  in  my  treatment  of  my 
furnace.  I  took  a  number  of  plumbers  down  to 
see  it,  and  consulted  with  them  —  one  at  a  time, 
of  course,  —  in  its  very  presence.  Each  one  laid 


y   Gbe  jfurnace,   ^ 

out  for  me  a  different  set  of  rules  by  which  to 
work  it,  and  explained  to  me  a  different  set  of 
principles  which  governed  each  set  of  rules.  You 
could  not  have  told  them  from  so  many  doctors. 
At  first,  too,  I  showed  the  furnace  to  friends  of 
experience  and  to  •  distinguished  strangers  who 
occasionally  honored  my  humble  roof.  On  one 
occasion  I  took  down  a  distinguished  poet,  a 
scientist  of  wide  reputation  and  a  man  who  had 
recently  invented  a  ten-cent  puzzle ;  and  this  over- 
dose of  glory  and  dignity  was  quite  too  much  for 
the  furnace.  It  would  not  draw  for  the  next 
three  weeks,  and  it  gave  out  very  little  more  heat 
than  the  refrigerator. 


Suburban  Sa0e.   -y 

The  furnace  did  not  improve  as  the  years 
went  on;  and  the  members  of  the  household 
learned  with  each  successive  twelve-month  to  rely 
more  and  more  upon  open  fires  and  upon  a 
gradual  toughening  process  that  went  on  from 
September  to  April,  and  that  made  an  indoor 
temperature  of  fifty  degrees  Fahrenheit  bearable, 
if  not,  perhaps,  enjoyable.  Then  there  came  a 
day  —  a  happy  day  —  when  the  owner  of  the 
furnace  asserted  himself.  It  was  a  mild  January 
day  of  a  Winter  which  I  had  begun  by  laying  in 
twenty  tons  of  coal  for  the  consumption  of  that 
furnace.  The  boy  came  up  to  tell  me  that  they 
were  consumed.  He  was  not  the  first  boy  who 
had  made  of  his  young  energies  a  burnt  offering 
to  my  furnace;  he  was  only  one  in  a  long  succes- 
sion. When  I  heard  from  his  lips  that  the  coal 
was  all  gone;  and  when  I  reflected  that  the  chilly 
annoyances  of  the  Winter  were  to  be  succeeded 
by  the  cruel  inclemencies  of  Springtime,  I  was 
bitterly  angered;  and  for  the  first  time  in  my 
experience  I  went  down  into  the  cellar,  conscious 
of  an  angry  and  unkind  feeling  toward  my 
furnace. 

The  boy  had  spoken  truth :  yet  not  all  the 
truth.  The  twenty  tons  of  coal  had  vanished 
from  the  bin,  and  now,  slightly  charred,  formed  a 
large  portion  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  pile 
of  ashes,  in  a  lonely  region  of  the  cellar.  One 
door  of  the  furnace  was  broken,  another  had  lost 
its  hinge;  and  a  huge  crack  rent  its  fire-pot  half 
way  through.  I  gave  my  orders  sternly  and  pre- 
cisely. The  food  for  the  furnace  was  no  longer  to 
be  purchased  in  twenty-ton  lots.  It  was  to  be 
fed  from  hand  to  mouth :  ton  by  ton  at  a  time. 

86 


No  plumber  was  to  heal  its  gaping  wounds  — 
and  I  was  never  to  hear  one  solitary  word  about 
it  until  the  Summertime  should  come,  when  I 
could  tear  it  out  and  sell  it  for  old  iron,  and  put 
some  more  modern  device  in  its  place. 

That  was  six  years  ago,  and  all  is  changed 
since  then.  That  day  the  furnace  learned  its 
lesson:  in  bitterness  of  spirit,  I  have  no  doubt; 
but  faithfully  and  fully.  Never  since  then  have  I 
had  to  contend  with  it.  Perhaps  its  duties  are 
not  performed  in  absolute  cheerfulness  of  mind ; 
but  so  long  as  it  locks  up  its  discontent  in  its 
breast  and  locks  no  clinkers  there,  I  shall  not 
complain.  A  dull  and  sullen  servant  it  may  be, 
but  so  diligent  and  loyal  and  steady  that  I  try  to 
shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  crack  in  the  fire- 
pot  is  steadily  widening;  and  that  before  long  the 
87 


•y-   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.   V 

companion  of  many  days  and  nights  of  suburban 
solitude  and  solicitude  will  be  loaded  on  a  truck, 
and  will  be  borne  dangling  and  clanging  away 
from  its  home  to  lie  in  some  river-side  junkyard 
and  rust  itself  redder  than  it  ever  would  fire  up 
for  me. 

In  the  meantime  it  patiently  eats  and  turns 
to  good  account,  short  rations  of  coal,  grudgingly 
doled  out  to  it,  too  often  from  the  sifted  ash-heap. 


88 


THE    TIME-TABLE    TEST. 


THE     TIME-TABLE     TEST. 


NCE  upon  a  time,  in  the  days  of  my 
young  and  green  suburbanity,  I  served 
on  some  society  for  the  improvement 
of  everything  in  general;  and  I  was 
appointed  a  committee  of  one  to  call 
upon  the  residents  of  a  certain  street  and 
find  out  how  they  were  disposed  toward 
some  project  the  society  had  in  hand.  I  was 
appointed,  I  suppose,  because  I  knew  hardly  any 
one  in  that  particular  quarter.  In  fact,  I  knew 
but  one  man,  and  him  very  slightly.  So,  as  I 
knew  that  he  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  reputa- 
tion, I  thought  I  would  save  myself  trouble  by 
calling  on  him  only,  and  letting  him  voice  the 
sentiment  of  his  district. 

Mr.  Banker  was  out,  but  Mrs.  Banker  re- 
ceived me  graciously,  and  even  treated  me  with 
a  certain  affability  until  I  told  her  my  mission. 
Then  her  manner  underwent  a  change.  She  said 
she  thought  Mr.  Banker  was  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
ject, but  that  she  knew  nothing  of  the  other 
people  of  whom  I  inquired.  I  said  that  I  had 
thought  Mr.  Banker  would  be  able  to  tell  me 
something  about  the  probable  attitude  of  his  next 
door  neighbor,  -Mr.  Smallsales.  Mrs.  Banker  did 
not  think,  however,  that  Mr.  Banker  would  be 

qo 


Zest, 


likely  to  possess  any  information  as  to  the  views 
of  Mr.  Smallsales.  I  then  suggested  that  Mr. 
Banker  might  at  least  be  able  to  tell  me  how  Mr. 
Pettycash,  across  the  way,  might  happen  to  stand 
on  the  subject.  Mrs.  Banker  was  very  sure  that 
Mr.  Banker  could  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  I 
named  several  other  residents  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, but  in  every  case  Mrs.  Banker  was  con- 
fident that  Mr.  Banker  could  not  possibly  be 
acquainted  with  the  gentleman's  opinions.  The 


coldness  of  her  tone  increased  with  every  in- 
quiry ;  and  at  last  it  became  so  disapprovingly 
chilly  that  I  meekly  rose  to  retire,  wondering 
wherein  I  had  offended. 

Mrs.    Banker    saw   my    confusion,    and    she 
relented   sufficiently   to   afford  me  a  hint   of  en- 
lightenment.      With    a     severe,     though    pitying 
rebuke,    conveyed    in    voice    and    manner,    Mrs. 
91 


Suburban  Sa0e,    ^ 

Banker  drew  herself  up  majestically  and  said, 
icily,  looking  over  my  bowed  head : 

"We  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  having 
you  long  in  the  town,  Mr.  Sage,  and  you  prob- 
ably do  not  know  that  Mr.  Banker  never  goes  in 
earlier  than  the  i  o  :  17!" 

In  one  instant  I  recognized  the  vast  social 
gap  which  separated  the  husband  of  my  hostess 
from  poor  Smallsales  who  "went  in"  on  the 
7:27.  Blushing  for  my  obtuseness,  I  went  home 
and  resigned  from  the  society.  I  told  the  presi- 
dent that  I  thought  I  was  too  new  in  the  sub- 
urban field  for  active  work;  and  when  he  said 
that  it  was  only  the  new  men  who  ever  would  do 
any  active  work,  I  knew  that  I  was  right. 


It  was  this  incident,  I  think,  that  first  led 
me  to  find  diversion  in  studying  the  humors  and 
humanities  of  the  Children  of  the  Time -table. 
There  is  an  upper  window  in  my  house  that  com- 
mands an  uninterrupted  view  of  the  little  railway 
station,  and  it  is  a  daily  pleasure  for  me  to  stand 
there  and  watch  our  little  suburban  world  going 
to  business.  We  are  all  slaves  of  the  bell :  they 
of  the  locomotive -bell,  and  I  of  the  one  that 
jingles  in  a  corner  of  the  typewriter,  and  keeps 
tab  of  the  lines  as  they  crawl  along. 

I  have  got  so  now  that  if  I  were  to  wake 
up  out  of  a  sound  sleep,  look  out  of  that  window 
and  see  so  much  as  the  back  of  a  man,  or  even 
the  top  of  his  hat  —  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
expression  in  hats  —  going  to  the  train,  I  could 
tell  you  instantly  what  train  it  is,  whether  it  is 

Q2 


the  man's  regular  train  or  not  —  and  more  or  less 
why  he  is  taking  it. 

There  is  no  affectation  or  self- consciousness 
about  the  men  who  go  into  New  York  on  the 
very  early  trains.  Life  is  too  serious  a  matter  to 
them,  and  too  dull  a  matter;  and  it  holds  no 
bright  possibilities.  On  the  first  six  o'clock  train 
or  on  the  second  six  o'clock  train  they  go  in; 
and  on  the  first  six  o'clock  train  or  on  the  second 
six  o'clock  train  they  will  go  in  until  the  time 
comes  for  another  journey  which  will  not  involve 
their  getting  up  so  early.  Perhaps  there  are 
some  among  them  who  might  ease  their  weary 
lives  and  work  themselves  up  a  train  or  two;  but 
as  this  would  involve  the  execution  of  several 
extra  licks  of  work,  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  at 
all  likely. 

93 


^   Cbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

It  is  the  first  train  after  seven  o'clock  that 
brings  forth  the  passenger  to  whom  the  time- 
table assumes  the  appearance  of  an  ascending 
social  scale.  He  is  only  an  office-boy  at  present. 
If  he  is  employed  by  a  very  large  commission 
house,  rating  at  Ai  or  A2  in  the  books,  he  may 
be  called  a  junior  clerk;  but  even  in  that  case  his 
duties  are  the  same,  and  his  pay  is  likely  to  be 
less.  His  companions  on  his  towqward  trip  all 
occupy  similar  positions,  and  he  knows  them  all 
and  greets  them  with  airy  familiarity.  They  sky- 
lark noisily  on  the  platform,  and  behave  just  as 
much  like  college  boys  as  they  dare  to.  They 
have  to  put  some  restraint  upon  themselves, 
however,  for  the  neighboring  commuters  are  jeal- 
ous of  their  rest.  And,  while  they  are  accus- 
tomed to  stand  a  great  deal  of  noise  from  loco- 
motives, they  naturally  draw  the  line  at  boys. 

The  7  :o3  train  is  a  pleasant  sight  to  watch, 
as  it  begins  to  puff  on  its  way,  for  even  if  the 
boys  do  show  off  a  little  they  are  genuinely 
happy  and  full  of  the  joy  of  life;  and  I  like 
to  see  them  scramble  up  the  steps  like  young 
monkeys.  But  the  7:27  train  is  quite  another 
affair. 

The  errand-boy  has  got  his  promotion.  He 
is  really  a  junior  clerk  of  some  sort;  and  he  has 
the  glorious  privilege  of  getting  to  his  office 
exactly  twenty-four  minutes  later.  But,  with  his 
first  step  upward,  he  leaves  light-hearted  boyish- 
ness behind  him  and  becomes  a  prey  to  canker- 
ing ambition.  His  companions  are  men  now, 
but  mostly  men  who  have  barely  escaped  the 
bondage  of  the  6:38,  and  in  whose  breast  the 
hope  of  ever  rising  even  to  the  8:01  is  slowly 

94 


dying  out.  There  is  no  companionship  among 
them,  for  they  all  hate  the  doubtful  limbo  in 
which  they  are  placed;  and  those  who  may  get 
out  of  it  despise  those  who  never  may,  while  the 
latter  hate  the  former  with  all  the  cordiality  of  a 
healthy  human  envy.  It  needs  only  a  glance  to 
tell  a  7:27  man.  He  appears  long  before  train 
time,  and  he  hurries  along  and  casts  furtive 
glances  up  and  down  the  street,  fearful  that 
some  8:0 1  man  may  be  ostentatiously  loafing 
around  his  garden,  flaunting  to  the  world  his 
thirty-four  minutes  of  superiority. 

And  yet  the   8:01    man  —  that  is,  the  regular 


4$+   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

e very-day  8:01  man  —  is  not  a  happy  creature. 
It  is  true  he  puts  a  bolder  face  on  as  he  goes 
to  the  station,  and  assumes  a  jauntier  carriage. 
He  cultivates  an  air  of  being  extremely  fond 
of  early  rising;  and  he  sniffs  the  morning  breeze 
with  such  an  affectation  of  enjoyment  that  he 
sometimes  awakens  late  sleepers  under  whose 
windows  he  may  chance  to  pass.  But  his  arro- 
gant pretenses  desert  him  when  he  gets  to  the 
station.  There  you  see  him  glance  nervously 
about,  anxiously  seeking  for  some  8:48  man 
who  has  been  forced  by  an  exceptional  emer- 
gency to  take  an  earlier  train.  Him  he  will 
pursue  and  catch,  and  fasten  on  him  with  the 
grip  of  death;  and  he  will  not  be  shaken  off. 
The  8:48  man  has  business  on  his  mind;  he 
has  got  up  three-quarters  of  an  hour  before  his 
usual  time  —  and  every  morning  minute  counts 
with  the  suburban  commuter  —  and  he  is  sleepy 
and  cross,  and  his  breakfast  is  sitting  crosswise 
on  his  stomach.  But  the  8:01  man  will  stick 
by  him,  and  walk  up  and  down  the  platform 
with  him,  and  nod  loftily  to  his  regular  com- 
panions, as  though  he,  too,  were  one  of  the 
favored  children  of  fortune  who  usually  took 
the  train  of  the  day. 

For,  of  course,  the  8  148  is  the  train  of  the 
day.  WE  take  it  —  the  WE  that  is  WE  in 
every  suburban  town  —  oh !  too  often  most  tire- 
somely  WE,  and  most  unkindly  nobody  else. 
The  passing  of  the  8  :  48  train  is  decidedly  a 
social  function.  The  men  approach  it  by  twos 
and  threes,  never  hurrying,  but  with  an  air  of 
elegant  leisure  that  may  have  taken  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  in  preparation.  They  are  all  spick  and 

9f> 


span  in  their  clothes :  for  a  commuter's  clothes 
improve  from  train  to  train  until  he  gets  to  taking 
the  10  :  17,  when  he  is  reputed  so  rich  that  he 
may  safely  dress  shabbily.  There  is  always  a 
crowd  at  this  train,  and  many  ladies  take  it  who 
could  much  more  conveniently  go  in  later. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  tipping  of  hats  and 
shaking  of  hands  in  the  latest  imported  style; 
and,  altogether,  you  would  think  that  the  people 
assembled  on  the  little  platform  had  come  to- 
gether to  go  to  a  meeting  of  the  Fourhundred 
Hunt,  instead  of  going  to  New  York  to  make 
money  downtown  or  spend  it  uptown,  —  and  no 
great  money  at  either  end. 


I  saw  a  perfectly  happy  man  the  other  day. 
It   was  my  friend   Pettycash.      For   many  years, 

97 


Suburban 

Summer  and  Winter,  he  has  served  the  7:27 
train  faithfully  and  unfailingly.  The  other  day 
he  came  into  his  old  aunt's  money,  and  he 
promptly  resigned  his  clerkship.  He  told  his 
wife  that  for  a  few  days  before  he  entered  on  the 
management  of  the  estate  he  would  stay  at  home, 
and  they  would  have  a  splendid  time  together, 
looking  over  the  garden  and  figuring  out  what 
the  house  needed  in  improvements.  But  on  the 
very  first  day  of  his  freedom  he  surprised  and 
disappointed  her  immediately  after  breakfast  by 
telling  her  that  he  had  forgotten  something  in 
town  which  he  ought  to  attend  to,  and  that  he 
positively  must  go  in.  He  tried  to  placate  her 
by  offering  to  do  an  errand  for  her:  but  I  think 
that  only  aroused  unjust  suspicions  in  her  mind. 
She  need  not  have  been  troubled,  however.  He 
only  wanted  to  take  the  10:17  train,  and  he 
took  it.  I  happened  to  be  at  the  station,  where 
the  train  was  delayed  for  a  few  minutes,  and  I 
saw  him  roaming  uneasily  from  car  to  car, 
although  it  had  been  his  invariable  custom  to 
travel  in  the  smoker.  But  when  I  saw  him  at 
last  settle  himself  in  the  forward  car,  just  in  front 
of  the  great  Mr.  Banker,  and  begin,  with  an  air 
of  indolent  ease,  to  read  an  illustrated  paper,  I 
knew  just  how  he  felt. 


THE    SOCIETY    CHURCH. 


THE    SOCIETY    CHURCH. 


VERY  pleasant  people,  I  have 
no  doubt,  my  dear.      In    fact, 
,     I     have     heard    that     Mrs. 
Chasuble    met    them    and 
thought  them  very  agree- 
able, indeed.     But  I  real- 
ly don't    know    anything 
about  them,  myself.   They 
don't    belong    to    our 
church,  you  know !  " 

Do  not  imagine,  my 
startled  friend,  that  good 
Mrs.  Burrage  is  speaking  in 
an  un-Christian  spirit  when 
she  answers  thus  a  newcomer's 
question  about  some  resident  of  older  date. 
There  is  not  a  hint  of  un-Christian  spirit  in  Mrs. 
Burrage.  She  has  the  highest  respect  for  the 
people  of  whom  she  speaks ;  her  manner  is  most 
cordial  to  them  when  she  meets  them  here,  and 
I  am  sure  it  will  be  even  more  cordial  when  she 
meets  them  in  heaven  after  the  burden  of  her 
social  responsibilities  shall  have  rolled  off  her 
much-tried  suburban  back.  In  speaking  as  she 
does,  she  is  simply  asserting  the  right  of  her  own 
beloved  church  to  call  itself  the  Society  Church 


^   Gbe  Society  Cburcb.    V 

of  the  town.  She  and  other  earnest  workers 
have  won  for  it  that  distinction;  not  by  zealous 
religious  effort  —  for  she  knows  no  more  of  the 
doctrines  of  her  church  than  she  knows  of  the 
doctrines  .of  Confucius  —  but  simply  by  good, 
solid,  indefatigable  financiering. 

What  has  she  not  done  —  what  has  she  not 
gone  through,  to  attain  that  much-desired  end  ? 
She  has  wrung  gold  out  of  rocks,  silver  out  of 
stone,  and  nickel  and  copper  out  of  the  very 
pebbles  and  dust.  She  has  coaxed  and  cajoled 
and  wheedled  well-to-do  home-seekers  into  settling 
in  our  town ;  and  she  has  lured  their  wives  and 
daughters  from  other  folds  by  an  extravagance  in 
the  way  of  social  entertainment  which  has  driven 
Burrage  almost  to  the  verge  of  distraction.  He 
told  me  that  he  completely  wore  out  one  dress 
suit  while  Mrs.  Burrage  was  getting  the  church- 
spire  built;  and  that  he  worked  a  hole  in  his  new 
trousers  over  a  series  of  dinners  which  she  gave 
to  rope-in  some  people  who  had  n't  subscribed  to 
the  font. 

For  the  rock  on  which  the  suburban  Society 
Church  rests,  is,  I  am  afraid,  a  rock  of  gold-bear- 
ing quartz  that  has  little  likeness  to  the  rock  on 
which  Peter  founded  his  church.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say,  or  even  to  hint,  chat  the  church,  as  a 
church,  is  not  all  that  a  church  should  be  in  the 
way  of  disinterested  and  devoted  spirituality.  I 
should  not  presume  to  bear  testimony  upon  such 
a  point.  I  am  only  speaking  of  the  church  as  the 
dominant  social  organization  of  the  town,  to  point 
out  that  it  attained  that  proud  position  —  or,  as 
the  vulgar  say,  "got  there" — because  its  congre- 
gation had  the  most  money  and  the  best  workers. 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sage,    ^ 

The  opposition  church  —  we  have  a  number 
of  churches  in  our  town;  but  only  two  of  what 
you  might  call  the  first  magnitude  —  thought  it 
had  done  a  very  clever  thing  when  it  got  its 
corner-stone  laid;  covered  up  with  a  neat  little 
wooden  box,  and  left  to  await  the  growth  of  a 
building  fund  to  visible  proportions.  Little  the 
congregation  of  that  church  knew  Mrs.  Burrage. 
She  laid  her  corner-stone  later,  it  is  true,  but  in  it 
she  put  attested  copies  of  all  the  builders'  con- 
tracts, and  of  the  guarantees  of  fifteen  well-to-do 
citizens  to  pay  for  the  construction  of  the  edifice 
up  to  the  roof-line.  It  may  have  been  this  move; 
or  it  may  have  been  her  chartering  a  freight-train, 
decorating  it  with  flowers  and  green  things,  and 
running  a  church-fair  on  wheels  the  whole  length 
of  our  section  of  the  railroad  —  but  one  way  or 
another  victory  perched  on  her  banners.  People 


said  that  the  freight -car  church -fair  was  undig- 
rfified  and  even  irreverent;  but  it  was  a  glittering 
success;  and,  in  the  end,  there  was  the  beautiful 
little  brown-stone  church  to  show  for  it,  on  the 
best  corner  lot  in  the  best  quarter  of  the  place. 
And  when  the  newcomer  in  town  looked  around 


•^r   Gbe  Society  Cburcb.    y 

him  and  saw  that  church  and  the  other  churches, 
and  the  weather -beaten  box,  rain  -  streaked  and 
gray,  that  sheltered  the  corner-stone  of  the  opposi- 
tion church,  it  is  small  wonder  that  he  (or  his 
wife)  promptly  exchanged  the  religious  convic- 
tions of  his  (or  her)  ancestors  for  the  social  con- 
victions of  Mrs.  Burrage. 

I  have  not  told  you  what  particular  church 
it  is  for  which  Mrs.  Burrage  has  struggled  so 
hard;  but  I  may  say  that  in  most  suburban  towns 
the  struggle  is  apt  to  lie  betweeji  the  Episcopalians 
and  the  Presbyterians.  The  Presbyterians  have 
the  most  money  and  the  Episcopalians  have  the 
most  skill.  I  suppose  that  all  the  churches  are 
equally  capitalized  in  respect  to  Christianity;  but 
when  it  comes  to  cash  capital,  these  two  denomi- 
nations loom  up  like  light-houses.  The  Methodist 
Church  is  rich  in  spots,  and  the  Congregational 
Church  of  New  England  has  a  few  well-provision- 
ed outposts;  but  if  you  want  to  see  a  real  good, 
lively  tussle  for  the  possession  of  the  top  place  in 
a  new  town,  you  want  to  see  an  Episcopal  con- 
gregation and  a  Presbyterian  congregation  tackle 
each  other  for  blood. 

The  struggle  is  rarely  a  long  one.  The  first 
stone  church  up  gets  the  prize.  There  is  no 
gainsaying  that  sure  and  certain  proof  of  certain 
financial  superiority.  It  is  the  Stonechurchites 
henceforward  who  will  build  the  finest  club-house, 
organize  the  largest  entertainments,  and  set  the 
social  key  for  the  whole  town  —  deciding  whether 
the  majority  shall  go  in  for  athletics  or  for  in- 
tellectuals; for  the  higher  culture  or  for  fashion- 
able frivolity.  If  the  Presbyterians  get  the  inside 
track,  the  town  is  sure  to  get  the  higher  culture, 


^    Cbe  Suburban  Sage, 

and  will  probably  come  in  for  athletics;  but  it 
does  n't  stand  a  ghost  of  a  show  for  frivolity.  If 
the  Episcopalians  get  there,  the  fashionable  fri- 
volity and  the  athletics  (of  a  mild  sort)  are  quite 
safe;  but  there  is  absolutely  no  chance  for  the  in- 
tellectualities of  the  higher  culture:  the  idea  of 
an  Episcopalian's  needing  to  know  any  more  than 
he  naturally  does  know  being  too  preposterous  to 
consider. 

Let  me  say  here  that  although  my  range  of 
observation  has  covered,  by -and -large,  a  dozen 
small  towns  of  this  countryside,  I  have  never 
seen  one  instance  where  defeat,  in  a  fight  of  this 
sort,  was  not  accepted  loyally  and  bravely.  If 
the  Presbyterians  are  conquered,  they  simply 
screw  the  armor  of  sanctity  a  little  tighter,  and 
move  among  their  neighbors  as  stern  old  Puritans 
might  have  moved  amid  Papists  and  mummers  in 
the  days  of  the  second  Charles.  If  the  Episco- 
palians lose  the  game,  they  simply  smile  a  pitying 
smile  of  amused  tolerance,  and  the  vestryman's 
wife  says  to  her  guest : 

"Oh,  no,  my  dear!  you  must  n't  expect 
anything  in  the  way  of  gayety  here,  you  know. 
This  is  the  very  stronghold  of  Presbyterianism ; 
and  we  poor  idolaters  are  quite  looked  down 
upon.  There  are  only  enough  of  us,  you  know, 
for  two  or  three  tables  at  whist,  and  I  'm  afraid 
that  our  good  neighbors  think  we  are  very  shock- 
ing people." 

Yet  it  must  be  very  hard.  Of  course  every- 
body discounts  the  fact  that  nine  out  of  ten  of 
the  newcomers  in  town  will  have  neither  religion 
nor  politics  until  they  find  out  which  is  the 
fashionable  church,  and  which  is  the  party  with 

104 


the  normal  majority.  But  it  must  be  trying  to 
the  Shepherd  when  his  best  ewe  lambs  begin  to 
stray  from  the  fold. 

Here  is  the  case  of  Mrs.  Chedby,  for  in- 
stance. Her  pastor  met  her  on  the  street  the 
other  day,  and  remarked: 

"I  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you 
lately,  Mrs.  Chedby."  (In  church  understood.) 

"No,"  says  Mrs.  Chedby,  a  little  pinkish, 
but  with  the  air  of  one  who  has  prepared  herself 
for  the  fray:  "you  see,  Mr.  Chedby's  mother  is 
visiting  us,  and  she  's  such  an  ardent  Stone- 
churcharian,  you  know,  and  counts  so  much  upon 
never  missing  a  service ;  and  being  nearly  eighty, 
you  know,  I  really  had  to  go  with  her.  And 
I  'm  sure,  much  as  it  is  that  I  miss  there,  it  's 
been  a  great  comfort  to  me  to  be  a  help  to  the 


<y    Cbc  Suburban 

old  lady,  finding  her  places  in  the  prayer-book. 
It  came  quite  easy  to  me.  of  course,  tor  my 
mother  was  an  F.piscopalian,  you  kiv 

-Yes.  he  knows;  the  poor  pastor  knows. 
And  he  knows  that  her  father  was  a  hard-shell 
Baptist :  and  he  knows  that  if  she  were  to  go  to 
Paris  to-morrow  her  grandparents  would  turn  out 
to  have  been  Roman  Catholics.  And  he  knows 
that  she  is  slipping  —  slipping  —  Dipping  away 
from  him. 

A  little  before  the  end  of  dear  Mama's  visit. 
Mrs.  Chedby  -gets  at"  Mr.  Chedbv  to  induce 
him  to  go  to  church  once  in  a  while — just  for 
the  look  of  it.  That  question  having  been  set- 
tled for  ten  years  or  so.  Mr.  Chedby  does  not 
understand  her  at  all.  Then  he  thinks  she  wants 
more  money.  When  he  rinds  she  does  n't,  he 
becomes  a  little  worried  about  her  health,  and 
privately  asks  the  doctor  if  women  ever  get 
"nutty"  from  going  to  church  too  much.  Fin- 
ally he  1  ^  >  dimly  perceive  that  she  has 
some  object  in  view  which  she  means  to  keep 
to  herself.  He  waxes  wroth.  He  lays  back  his 
ears  and  stubbornly  refuses.  She  pleads  with 
him  for  his  mother's  sake. 

"Yon   know,  my  dear,  jjie  has  n't  said  one 
word  about  it  since  she  's  been  here,  though  1  'm 
sure  it  's  a  grief  to  her.  you  Ye  not  going.      Your 
father  always  did.   you   know.      Now, 
only   go   once,    just   once,  to  please  her,  and    1 
promise  you  1  won't  ask  you  another  time, 
know,   dear,   you  may  **t*r  set;  her  again." 

Finally  Chedby  compromises  to  the  extent 
of  one  solitary  sen  ice.  and  Mrs.  Chedby  reminds 
him  of  his  promise  the  moment  he  opens  his 


Cbe  Society  Cburcb. 


eyes  on  the  beautiful  Sabbath  morn.  It  is  well 
she  does,  for  it  is  no  trifling  job  to  get  Chedby 
off  to  church.  In  the  first  place,  he  is  a  man 
who  spends  most  of  his  waking  hours  in  a  cheviot 
shirt,  for  he  is  an  electrical  engineer  of  renown, 
and  he  is  the  superintendent  for  this  region  of 
some  great  company  that  is  scarring  this  fair 
country  with  trolleys  and  power-houses,  and  all 
manner  of  evil  inventions;  and  most  of  Chedby's 
time  is  spent  in  driving  furiously 
hither  and  thither  in  a  sulky 
with  a  bottom  like  a  big  yel- 
low soap-dish. 

He    swears    profusely 
as  he    struggles  with   his 
collars  and  cuffs,  alone  in 
his    little    dressing  -  room. 
Mrs.   Chedby,   in   the   next 
room,  hears  him  ;  but  she  re- 
bukes him  only  with  a  gentle 
"Hush!"     He    swears   still 
more    every    time    that    he 
looks   out   of  his    dressing- 
room  window,  and  his  eye 
lights  on  his  little  work- 
shop in  the  garden,  where 
for  so  many  years  he  has 
spent  his  Sunday  mornings, 
peacefully  tinkering  away   at 
his   inventions   and  .  improvements   and   contrap- 
tions   generally;     for    Chedby    is    a    mechanical 
genius    on    his    own    hook  —  I    wish    he    would 
make  himself  a  lawn-roller. 

However,  he  has  got  ready  at  last,  and  is 
steered    into    the    church  -  going    throng   on   the 
9*7 


t^    Sbc  Suburban 

highway,  red  in  the  face,  ami  surtering  much 
in  the  region  of  the  collar.  Ho  gets  redder 
yet  as  he  hoars  low  whistles  of  surprise  and  in- 
credulity from  pasMng  golfers  and  bicyclers ;  but 
with  his  eyes  firmly  fixed  upon  the  prayer-book, 
which  he  grasps  with  perspiring  lingers,  he 
marches  on  behind  his  womenfolk.  At  church 
he  gets  along  pretty  well  through  the  >er\  ire ; 
although  Mrs.  Chedby  has  to  take  his  silk  hat 
away  from  him  two  or  three  times,  because  he 
will  play  a  tattoo  on  the  crown.  In  the  first 
of  the  sermon  he  fidgets,  then  he  calms  down 
into  a  state  of  absolute  abstraction,  and  Ifn. 
•'Chedby  knows  by  his  drumming  on  his  knees 
with  his  finger  tips  and  puckering  his  lip- 
if  he  were  going  to  whistle,  that  he  is  deep  in 
mathematical  calculations.  In  fancied  security 
the  good  lady  folds  her  arms  and  begins  to 
study  Episcopalian  styles  in  sermon  -  hearing 
attitudes.  The  clergyman  draws  the  main  ar- 
gument of  his  discourse  to  an  end  with  one  of 
those  sweeping,  triumphant  questions  which  are 
only  asked  because  there  J£  n't  any  answer  to 
them;  and  Mr.  Chedby,  dimly  conscious  in  his 
mathematical  depths  of  an  interrogative  pause. 
gives  a  loud,  absent-minded  snort  of  assent.  A 
little  titter  titters  around;  Mrs.  Chedby  flushes 
crimson,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Lilymouth  turns  the 
pinkest  he  can,  and  reads  the  rest  of  his  ser- 
mon as  if  it  were  an  auctioneer's  catalogue. 

But  C hod by  has  served  his  turn.  The 
paths  of  the  two  congregations  cross  each 
other;  and  Mrs.  Chedby  takes  good  care  that 
her  old  pastor  shall  see  her  turn-out. 

**  Oh,  yes,"  she  will  say  to  him  later,  when 


he  makes  his  hopeless  remonstrance ;  "  I  got 
into  the  habit  of  going  when  Mr.  Chedby's 
mother  was  here,  and  Mr.  Chedby  showed  so 
much  interest  in  going  to  his  old  church  again ; 
and  I  knew  he  would  n't  go  by  himself;  and 
as  the  children  are  to  be  brought  up  in  that 
faith,  anyway,  and  as  both  Mr.  Chedby  and 
his  mother  felt  so  strongly  about  it,  it  did  n't 
seem  to  me  as  though  I  ought  to  consider 
myself.  And  of  course  it  would  have  been 
different,  in  a  way,  if  dear  Mama  had  n't  been 
a  Church-of-England  woman !  " 

And  when  he  hears  the  "  dear  Mama " 
and  the  "  Church-of-England  woman "  the  poor 
Shepherd  knows  that  the  brand  of  the  other 
flock  is  on  his  ewe  lamb. 


tog 


THE    SUBURBANITE    AND 
HIS    GOLF. 


THE    SUBURBANITE    AND    HIS    GOLF. 


ONE  day  last  Summer,  Mygatt  called  on 
me  at  about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  I  saw 
from  the  evening  paper  in  his  hand 
that  he  had  just  come  from  the 
train ;  and  I  wondered  a  little 
at  this,  for  he  is  a  regular  man 
in  his  goings  and  comings,  and 
my  house  is  well  out  of  his 
way.  With  an  air  that  was  at 
once  mysterious  and  diffident,  he 
asked  if  he  might  look  at  my  ency- 
clopedia. I  took  him  to  the  library 
and  asked  him  what  volume  he 
wanted.  He  seemed  uncertain 
about  it,  and  something  in  his 
manner  suggested  to  me  that  he 
wanted  to  be  left  alone.  I  strolled 
out  upon  the  verandah,  and  I  had  not  sat  there 
long  before  Hix  came  in  at  the  gate.  He,  too, 
wanted  to  look  at  my  encyclopedia.  I  was 
about  to  tell  him  that  Mygatt  was  at  that  mo- 
ment looking  at  it,  when,  glancing  over  my 
shoulder,  I  saw  that  the  library  was  empty,  and 
that  one  of  the  volumes  was  missing  from  the  big 
leather-bound  set.  Mygatt  must  have  slipped 
out  of  my  own  back  door  of  retreat,  and  I  could 


not  but  infer  that  he  had  his  own  wishes  for 
having  his  errand  kept  private.  I  told  Hix  I 
would  go  with  him  to  the  library  as  soon  as  my 
smoke  was  finished,  and  I  got  him  to  sit  down 
by  me  on  the  side  farthest  from  the  door,  and 
smoke  until  Mygatt  should  have  had  a  chance 
to  cover  his  retreat.  In  the  meantime  I  asked 
Hix  if  I  could  be  of  any  service  to  him  in  his 
researches.  At  first  he  did  n't  think  I  could,  and 
then  he  hemmed,  hawed,  and  finally  blurted  out: 

"  Why,  it  's  this  way,  Sage :  I  want  to  look 
up  something  about  an  English  game  that  they 
call  golf  or  goff,  or  something  like  that ;  and  I 
guess  I  '11  have  to  get  you  to  help  me,  for  I  'm 
hanged  if  I  know  how  to  spell  the  blamed 
thing." 

"Oh!"  said  I,  much  relieved;  "is  that  what 
you  want  ?  "  A  hasty  glance  showed  me  that 
Mygatt  was  gone,  and  his  volume  was  back  in 


•^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    -^ 

the  book-case.  I  led  my  guest  to  the  old  red 
cherry  book-case  in  the  hall,  that  enshrines  the 
sporting  library  of  the  family  for  several  genera- 
tions —  a  curious  collection  that  ranged  from 
Izaak  Walton,  by  way  of  Mr.  Sponge's  Sporting 
Tour,  to  the  Base-ball  Guide  of  the  current  year. 
Here  I  hunted  up  two  or  three  recent  works  on 
golf  which  I  had  to  read  in  boning  up  for  a 
Quarterly  article  on  "  The  Specific  Moral  In- 
fluence of  Certain  Assorted  and  Selected  Forms 
of  Physical  Exercise;"  and  I  was  just  simple 
enough  to  give  him  a  condensed  account  of  what 
I  had  boned  up.  I  thought  Hix  looked  a  little 
frightened  at  the  books  ;  but  he  took  the  thinnest 
one  of  them  and  departed,  thanking  me  more 
warmly  than  seemed  necessary.  As  I  went  back 
into  the  library,  I  could  not  help  noticing  that 
Mygatt  had  not  put  his  volume  back  properly. 
I  pulled  it  out,  and  the  book  split  itself  open 
at  the  pages  headed  — 

GOLDSMITH  GOMER 

GOLF  GOMPHIASIS 

It  did  not  require  any  great  sagacity  to  put 
the  one  two  and  the  other  two  together;  but  I 
felt  pretty  sure  of  my  guess,  when,  late  the  next 
night,  just  as  I  was  closing  my  book  to  go  to 
bed,  a  man  who  had  not  crossed  my  threshold 
for  two  years  slipped  stealthily  in  on  me  and 
said: 

"  Oh,  Sage,  they  tell  me  you  're  a  great 
authority  on  the  new  game  they  call  garf.  Would 
you  mind  telling  me  something  about  it  ?  Pretty 
much  the  same  thing  as  shinny,  is  n't  it?" 


I  was  away  from  home  for  a  few  weeks  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  Summer.  The  first  night 
that  I  got  home  Hix  and  Mygatt  came  to  see 
me.  It  was  the  hottest  September  night,  I  think, 
that  I  ever  remember;  but  those  two  dear  simians 
wore  heavy  tweed  suits,  hand-me-down  cloth 
caps  that  fell  over  their  noses,  and  golf  stockings 
an  inch  thick,  with  a  diamond  pattern  on  them, 
in  a  ghastly  orange  that  somehow  suggested  a 
dish  of  fried  eggs  gone  astray. 

They  told  me  that  they  wanted  me  to  play 
golf;  that  it  was  the  greatest  game  on  earth;  and 
that  I  did  not  want  to  lose  an  hour  in  making 
myself  acquainted  with  its  mysteries. 


•y-   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mygatt,  "  you  think  it  's 
something  like  shinny.  Most  people  do.  But 
it  's  not,  in  the  least.  You  see,  it  's  this  way  — " 

"  Hold  on  !  "  interrupted  Hix  ;  "  you  let  me 
explain  to  him.  I  Ve  shown  so  many  people 
I  Ve  kind  of  got  the  hang  of  it.  May  be  he  's 
heard  something  about  it,  anyway.  You  Ve 
heard  of  the  game,  have  n't  you,  Sage  ? 
G-O-L-F  —  You  must  have  seen  something 
about  it  in  the  papers." 

"  My  dear,"  inquired  Mrs.  Sage,  when  I 
had  toiled  upstairs  that  night,  an  hour  or  two 
later,  "  what  on  earth  were  those  men  talking 
to  you  about  all  this  while  ? " 

"  Golf,"  I  said,  wearily. 

"  What  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Sage,  indignantly  ; 
"  not  that  ridiculous  game  that  they  Ve  been 
trying  to  get  us  to  play  all  this  time  up  at 
Seacaddie  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid,  my  dear,"  I  said,  "  it  is 
the  very  same." 


Now,  I  am  not  going  to  say  anything 
against  golf;  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  to  the 
unfortunates  of  Lenox  and  Tuxedo,  idle  and 
incapable  of  intellectual  enjoyments,  it  must  be, 
indeed,  a  precious  boon.  But  to  the  plain  sub- 
urbanite of  modest  means  it  is  nowhere  in  in- 
terest to  the  game  the  conductor  plays  making 
holes  in  his  commutation  ticket. 

I  think  that  perhaps  the  golf  enthusiasts 
might  have  made  better  progress  in  their  great 
mission,  had  they  not  too  early  in  the  day  let  out 

7/6 


the  fact  that  there  is  more  golf  played  off  the 
grounds  than  on  them  —  in  fact,  that  it  is  a  great 
ferry-boat  and  station- platform  game. 

In  the  beginning,  Hix  and  Mygatt  and  the 
rest  of  them  took  turns  at  carrying  broken  golf 
clubs  into  the  city,  and  expatiating  on  the  deli- 
cate points  of  the  instrument. 

"  Best  mashie  I  ever  had,"  one  announces, 
as  if  he  had  been  brought  up  with  mashies.  "  I. 
got  it  the  day  I  got  that  craigenputtoch  and  that 
gloomer  —  you  know,  Hix  ?  " 

"  Little  bit  like  my  stymie-boddle,  is  n't  it?" 
inquires  Hix. 

"  No,"  says  Mygatt,  judicially ;  "  I  think 
you  will  find  it  has  a  little  more  whoof  on  the 
wimsie  side — just  a  thirty-second  of  an  inch, 
may  be;  but  that  's  what  does  it." 

And  they  all  agree  that  that  is  what  does 
it;  and  they  tell  stories  about  strikes  they  have 

7/7 


^   £be  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

made  and  they  have  n't  made,  so  long,  and  so 
specific,  and  so  utterly  pointless  and  uninterest- 
ing that  they  would  turn  a  trout -fisher  green 
with  envy. 

An  indiscreet  excess  of  this  sort  of  thing  led 
to  a  chilly,  suspicious  feeling  about  golf  in  the 
more  active  athletic  circles  of  our  town.  Mem- 
bers of  the  base-ball  team  went  down  to  the  golf- 
links,  watched  the  proceedings  for  a  half-hour  or 
so,  and  then  demanded  : 

"  Say,  when  are  you  fellows  going  to  quit 
practice  and  call  the  game  ?  " 

This  treatment  so  irritated  the  golfites  that 
they  worked  themselves  into  a  sort  of  religious 
fury  of  enthusiasm.  They  ravaged  the  town  for 
converts.  Men,  women  and  children  were  torn 
from  happy  homes  and  forced  to  swing  deformed 
war-clubs  in  the  air,  and  to  pound  the  inoffensive 
earth.  Brasseys  and  craigenputtochs  were  thrust 
into  the  trembling  hands  of  age,  and  even  in- 
nocent childhood  was  not  exempt.  The  church 
itself  was  invoked  to  exert  its  powerful  influence ; 
and  the  Rector  obligingly  went  around  saying  to 
recalcitrants:  "What!  not  play  golf?  I  thought 
everybody  did !  "  It  must  have  looked  that  way  to 
him  Sunday  mornings  —  for  the  Church  of 
England,  you  know,  golfs  on  Sunday  with  perfect 
propriety. 

But  somehow  all  this  was  of  no  avail.  The 
game  enjoyed  a  sort  of  hectic  prosperity  during 
the  latter  days  of  Fall,  when  there  was  very  little 
else  to  be  done  out-of-doors;  but  the  snow  buried 
it  for  the  Winter;  and  when  it  was  brought  forth 
again  in  the  Spring,  only  a  handful  of  sneezing 
devotees  gathered  in  the  cause.  The  practice 

118 


Suburbanite  anfc  1bi5  (3olf. 


games  for  the  tennis  openings  diminished  even 
this  number;  and  when  the  base  -  ball  season 
opened,  the  first  swing  of  the  bat  knocked  golf 
galley-west. 


When  the  crusade  was  at  its  hottest,  I  was 
dragooned,  against  my  natural  instincts,  into  buy- 
ing a  pair  of  crazy-quilt  stockings  an  inch  thick, 
and  a  couple  of  crooked  sticks  with  fool  names  to 
them.  The  stockings  were  a  good  investment,  as 
I  find  on  chilly  days;  but  I  never  knew  what  to 
do  with  the  sticks  until  Mygatt,  who  had  made 
me  buy  them,  moved  into  my  neighborhood. 


IIQ 


Suburban  5a0e.    -y 

Then  I  painted  red  spots  on  them,  fixed  them  up 
with  leather  ears  and  bristling  manes,  which  I 
had  made  out  of  an  old  hair  brush,  and  gave 
them  to  my  two  youngest  children  for  hobby- 
horses. Mygatt  has  to  pass  my  door  twice  a  day, 
and  every  time  I  see  him  watching  those  children 
with  eyes  of  horror,  and  shuddering  at  the  desecra- 
tion, I  feel  that  those  sticks  are  earning  an  honest 
penny  for  the  first  time  in  their  crooked  lives. 


THE    SUBURBAN    DOG. 


THE    SUBURBAN    DOG. 


HERE  is  a  small,  sweet  patch  of  si- 
lence that  comes  over  the  suburban 
night  just  as  it  is  turning  into  morn- 
ing. There  is  no  other  really  silent 
period  in  all  the  stretch  between 
bed-time  and  get-up  time.  A  man 
never  realizes  with  what  a  variety  of 
animal  life  he  is  surrounded,  until  he  lies 
awake  one  Summer  night  in  the  suburbs.  It  will 
be  borne  in  upon  him,  in  the  course  of  that 
experience,  that  between  the  moo  of  the  calfless 
cow  and  the  buzz  of  the  sleepless  mosquito,  there 
is  as  large  a  choice  in  nocturnal  noises  as  the 
most  exacting  could  demand. 

But,  for  this  little  space,  there  comes  a 
silence  so  profound  that  it  occasionally  wakes  me 
up.  It  did  the  other  day,  and  I  did  not  try  to  go 
to  sleep  at  once,  but  lay  still  for  a  while,  drinking 
in  the  charm  of  it. 

The  stillness  was  perfect.  Even  the  little 
birds  in  the  vines  had  let  up  on  their  sawfiling 
lullabies;  and  there  was  not  enough  wind  to 
move  the  leaves  in  the  tree  -  tops.  For  ten 
minutes  the  spell  lasted,  and  then,  far,  far 
away,  in  a  distant  street,  I  heard  the  opening 
and  shutting  of  a  house  -  door,  and  my  ear 


faintly    caught    the    sound    of   a    heavy,    regular 
foot-fall  on  the  hard  macadam. 

"  Ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh !  " 

It  was  only  the  engineer  at  the  mill,  going 
to  his  daily  work,  and  I  knew  it,  and  the  dogs 
knew  it;  but  it  made  no  difference  to  the  dogs. 

"  Ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh !  " 

It  might  have  been  a  college  yell,  but  it  was 
n't ;  it  was  the  real  thing.  Somebody's  dog  had 
seized  the  chance  to  be  smart.  Then  another  one 
answers  him  —  a  querulous  little  kiyi,  who  goes : 

"  Rih-rih-rih-rih-rih ! " 
123 


V   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

Then  a  big  hound  comes  in  with  a  heavy 
bay  — 

"  Roo-roo-roo-roo-roo ! " 

Then  a  lady-dog  somewhere  comes  in  with 
a  hysterical  yelp,  telling  the  world  that  her  nerves 
are  all  unstrung,  and  that  it  gave  her  a  terrible 
start  to  be  waked  up  so  suddenly,  and  what  is 
the  matter,  anyway  ?  Then  there  is  a  vague  dog, 
who  must  live  somewhere  where  he  is  not  in  the 
habit  of  seeing  things;  and  he  barks  in  a  doubt- 
ful, inquiring  way,  as  if  he  had  done  a  good  deal 
of  barking  in  the  course  of  his  life,  and  had 
never  seen  any  particular  good  come  of  it.  Then 
there  is  a  peculiarly  offensive  dog  who  yaps  so 
shrilly  and  persistently  and  penetratingly  that  I 
know  he  can  not  be  much  over  six  inches  long, 
and  the  kind  of  dog  that  would  run  away  from  a 
rubber-doll. 

One  by  one  they  all  come  in.  Under  my 
window  two  familiar  dog-voices  break  forth  — 
the  bass  of  my  big  dog  and  the  treble  of  my 
little  one.  On  sweeps  the  chorus  in  every  key 
and  cadence;  and  I  know  that  the  spreading 
ripple  of  melody  will  not  die  out  until  it  has 
reached  -the  confines  of  the  town.  It  does  not 
last  long  —  five  minutes,  perhaps  —  and  then  it 
subsides  all  of  a  sudden.  One  low  cur,  who 
must  have  jackass  blood  in  him,  tries  to  get 
up  an  encore,  but  it  does  n't  go. 

A  nuisance?  Well,  perhaps.  But  it  is  a 
nuisance  that  goes  with  the  dogs;  and,  so  far 
as  I  can  judge,  from  the  volume  and  extent 
of  that  chorus,  it  has  not  deterred  one  single 
person  in  town  from  keeping  dogs.  But  it  is 
totally  unnecessary.  Why  do  they  do  it  ? 


^    £be  Suburban  Bog.    y 

Purely  as  a  matter  of  sentiment.  That  is 
their  way  of  reminding  us  that  they  still  cling  to 
the  old  title  of  service  by  which  they  earned  the 
right  to  share  men's  homes,  and  to  be  the  com- 
panions of  men.  The  barking  simply  says : 

"Here  we  are,  you  see;  not  wanted  at 
present,  but  just  as  ready  to  warn  you  of  danger 
and  to  fight  for  you  as  the  best  of  our  fore- 
fathers. We  know  that  it  is  all  right  just  now  ; 
we  don't  even  get  up  to  bark;  we  just  lie  here 
and  wag  our  fat  tails,  but  we  're  here  —  oh ! 
we  're  here!" 

Very  foolish,  you  think.  Well,  perhaps  so; 
but  there  are  four  or  five  old  gentlemen  right 
here  in  this  State  of  New  Jersey  who  meet  once 
every  year  in  a  remote  town  in  the  woods,  and 
go  through  certain  legal  formalities  to  assure  the 
myriad  house-owners  of  the  State  that  they,  the 
old  gentlemen,  are  still  the  Proprietors  of  New 
Jersey  —  which  they  are,  indeed,  by  right  of  suc- 
cession, although  the  original  grant  has  dwindled 
to  a  few  pine-barrens.  Now,  either  there  is  a 
good  deal  of  human  nature  about  a  dog,  or  — 
we  will  let  it  go  at  that. 


I  suppose  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
suburban  dog  is,  as  a  rule,  a  job  lot.  His 
owner,  of  course,  affects  to  see  signs  of  blood 
and  lineage  about  him;  but  his  owner's  neigh- 
bors call  him  a  mongrel  cur,  and  as  his  past 
is  generally  hazy,  perhaps  the  neighbors  size  him 
up  rightly.  Once  in  a  while  you  find  an  in- 
experienced suburbanite  who  is  rash  enough  to 
125 


pay  good  money  for  a  real  canine  aristocrat, 
but  he  never  repeats  the  experiment.  To  keep 
the  noble  beast  from  contaminating  associations 
with  the  lower  orders,  he  has  to  be  cooped  up 
in  a  cage  or  pen,  and  taken  out  to  walk  at  the 
end  of  a  leash.  Under  this  treatment  the  ani- 
mal pines,  and  becomes  a  burdensome  object  of 
compassion.  Veterinaries,  amateur  and  profes- 
sional, work  over  him  with  no  better  effect  than 
to  increase  his  depression  of  spirits.  Finally  he 
takes  hold  of  the  case  himself,  breaks  out  of  the 
cage  one  fine  night,  and  is  not  seen  again  for 
a  couple  of  weeks,  when  he  returns  home  with 
evary  sign  of  having  led  a  highly  disreputable 
life.  His  escapade  can  not  be  concealed  from 


Gbe  Suburban  Bog. 


a  censorious  world.  In  fact,  complaints  of  his 
uninvited  visits  come  from  dog-owners  near  and 
far,  and  in  the  end,  he  is  given  to  the  farmer 
who  makes  the  most  fuss  over  his  claim  for 
damages. 

But  in  the  case  of  the  average  dog,  he  is 
either  given,  or  he  gives  himself.  Some  dogs 
lead  a  varied  and  unsettled  life,  involving  a  con- 
stant repetition  of  both  processes.  A.  moves  to 
town  and  gives  his  setter  pup  to  B.  Setter  pup 
does  n't  like  B.,  and  goes 
and  inflicts  himself  upon 

C.  C.  won't  have  it,  and 
passes  the  dog  over  to 

D.  The     dog     runs 
away     every     chance 
he  can   get,  and  goes 
back    to     C.      That 
makes   D.  mad,  and 
he   tells    C.   to   take 
his     wretched     pup 
back.    C.  goes  to  E. 
and  labors  hard  with 
him  to  take  the  dog. 

E.  finally    consents, 
and    then   it   is  dis- 
covered that  the  dog 
has  established  him- 
self in  the  household 
of    F.,  from    whence 
he    will    probably    be 
ejected  as  soon  as   he 

exposes  the  objectionable  ways  that  he  has  picked 
up  in  the  course  of  his  many  changes  of  owner- 
ship. 

127 


-y-    £be  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

But  whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  fate  of 
this  dog,  he  will  for  the  rest  of  his  days  carry 
around  his  affections,  not  in  a  solid  chunk,  but  cut 
up  into  sections,  like  a  closely  divided  pie.  From 
A.  to  F.  —  or  to  Z.,  if  he  lasts  long  enough  —  he 
will  feel  that  he  has  a  dropping-in  acquaintance  at 
every  house;  and  not  one  of  all  the  people 
through  whose  hands  he  has  passed  will  ever  get 
wholly  rid  of  him,  except  C.,  who,  having  had 
more  trouble  than  anybody  else  with  the  animal, 
may  have  found  some  clear  and  comprehensible 
method  of  expressing  his  feelings  on  the  subject. 

I  feel  somewhat  conscience-stricken  for  hav- 
ing given  this  instance  to  the  world,  as  I  look  out 
of  my  window  and  see  the  flock  of  innocent, 
harmless  and  wholly  unobjectionable  dogs  repos- 
ing on  my  lawn  and  the  neighborhood  lawns  — 
it  is  the  very  hottest  of  the  day,  and  they  are 
quiet  for  a  while.  There  are  red  and  black 
setters,  and  calico  setters,  and  fox-terriers,  and 
bull-terriers,  and  Scotch  terriers,  and  Newfound- 
lands, and  skyes,  and  bassett-hounds,  and  mastiffs, 
and  every  kind  and  variety  of  dog,  down  to  the 
plain  yellow,  or  common  dog  dog.  There  is  not 
a  pedigree  among  the  whole  lot  of  them;  few 
have  any  beauty,  and  the  usefulness  of  the  best 
of  them  is  a  doubtful  quantity.  True,  they  bark 
at  night,  but  they  bark  as  sensationally  at  the 
squirrel  in  the  tree  as  they  do  at  the  lurking 
burglar;  and  they  might  bark  their  heads  off 
before  any  of  us  got  up  to  bother  with  them. 
They  certainly  do  accompany  the  baby -carriages 
on  their  rounds,  with  an  air  of  proud,  protecting 
importance,  which  nothing  in  the  world  ever 
attains  to,  except  an  officer  in  a  militia  regiment; 
128 


and  there  is  a  widespread  belief  that  if  a  tramp 
attempted  to  raid  a  baby  carriage,  the  largest  of 
the  attendant  dogs  would  eat  him  up.  This  must, 
however,  be  always  a  problem  of  the  future,  for 
tramps  who  are  collecting  babies  are  scarce  in 
these  parts. 

Perhaps  they  are  not  valuable  or  beautiful  or 
useful  —  our  dogs  —  but  we  keep  the  most  of 
them  for  plain,  honest  love  of  them.  They  play 
gently  with  the  children;  they  submit  to  awk- 
ward, childish  caresses  that  hurt  them;  even  the 
great,  big  short-haired  St.  Bernard  puts  his  police- 
man's-club  of  a  tail  between  his  legs  and  shrinks 
meekly  away  when  the  baby  prods  him  with  a 
sharp  stick.  When,  having  been  away,  we  come 

I2Q 


4$+   Cbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

home,  they  are  the  first  to  meet  us,  wagging  their 
honest  tails,  reaching  us  far  ahead  of  the  children, 
and  yet  patiently  waiting  for  their  meagre  word 
and  caress  of  recognition  until  the  young  ones 
have  been  fully  greeted. 

How  could  we  spare  them  —  our  dogs  — 
for  are  they  not  part  and  parcel  of  the  suburban 
household?  When  the  Master  of  the  House 
comes  home  at  evening,  and  looking  up  the  road- 
way from  afar  off,  sees  the  big  yellow  tail  and  the 


130 


Suburban  2>o0.    V' 

little  brown  tail  wagging  cheerfuly  as  he  heaves 
in  sight,  he  knows  that  all  has  gone  well  with  the 
home  company,  and  that  he  need  not  fear  that 
change  or  sickness  has  come  to  pass  in  his 
absence;  for,  had  it  been  otherwise,  the  dogs 
would  have  known  it,  with  their  wonderful  and 
mysterious  dog  knowledge,  and  they  would  have 
hid  themselves  from  his  sight  at  the  time  of  his 
home-coming,  instead  of  going  out  into  the  road 
to  wag  their  honest  mongrel  tails,  and  tell  him 
that  all  was  well  with  those  he  loved. 


THE    NEWCOMERS. 


'33 


i 


THE     NEWCOMERS. 


(HE  other  evening  my  wife  reminded 
me  that  I  had  promised  to  lend  a 
road-map  to  a  man  who  had  re- 
cently moved  into  town  from  New 
York.  This  surprised  me  somewhat, 
for  I  did  not  remember  that  I  had 
ever  made  such  a  promise.  But  when  I 
found  out  that  my  wife  had  promised  for 
me,  I  realized  that  it  was  a  much  more 
binding  engagement  than  any  I  could  have 
made,  because  it  was  one  that  I  should  not 
be  allowed  to  forget.  So  I  laid  down  my  pipe 
and  book,  found  the  road-map,  and  strolled  out 
into  the  night  alone;  for  Mrs.  Newcomer  had 
not  yet  returned  Mrs.  Sage's  call,  and  my  visit 
was  to  have  no  standing  in  social  law  —  to  be 
a  thing  existent,  but  unrecognized,  like  a  drink 
between  drinks,  or  a  Philadelphia  alley. 

In  a  spirit  of  informality,  I  put  on  my 
oldest  slouch  hat  and  walked  leisurely  and  luxu- 
riously through  the  mellow  August  evening.  I 
say  "luxuriously"  advisably;  for  I  had  not  walk- 
ed a  hundred  yards  before  I  realized  that  I  was 
enjoying  one  of  the  best  luxuries  that  our  gener- 
ous but  somewhat  confused  climate  has  to  give 
us.  The  stars  made  a  faint  light  in  the  brooding 

134 


^   Gbe  Iftewcomerg.    ^ 

skies;  and  the  darkened  earth  was  peaceful  and 
silent  with  a  temperate  air,  neither  hot  nor  cool; 
and  a  pleasant  green  smell  to  it. 

Ahead  of  me  the  gray  macadam  road 
stretched  dimly  on  till  it  lost  itself  in  a  vista  of 
arching  trees.  I  was  surprised  that  I  seemed  to 
have  it  all  to  myself.  Perhaps  it  was  too  early  in 
the  evening,  and  my  fellow -townsmen  preferred 
the  charms  of  nicotine  to  those  of  nature.  I 
smiled  a  smile  of  kindly  contempt  for  their  pre- 
ference, as  I  lit  a  cigar,  which  I  happened  to  find 
in  my  pocket. 

I  soon  perceived,  however,  that  the  night 
was  not  attractive  to  me  alone.  Away  off  in  the 
distant  woods,  I  heard  the  performance  of  a 
nocturnal  tragi- comedy,  familiar  enough  at  this 


-y>   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.   ^ 

season  of  the  year.      It  had  only  three  acts,  or 
rather,  three  sounds.     The  Owl  said : 

"Whoo-oo!"  the  gun  said  "Pop!";  and 
then  the  boy  with  the  gun  made  an  unspellable 
noise  that  expressed  surprise  and  delight  —  for 
he  had  hit  the  owl. 

This  little  episode  brought  out  another  evi- 
dence of  human  companionship.  Away  up  the 
road  the  pale  macadam  suddenly  turned  white 
where  a  small  but  brilliant  disk  of  light  was  pro- 
jected upon  it.  Then  the  light  dashed  around 
and  lit  up  the  tree-trunks  and  the  underbrush. 
Then,  after  an  interval,  in  which  I  could  not  hear 
a  sound,  except  the  insect  noises  of  the  night,  it 
appeared  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  and  ap- 
parently nearer  to  me.  I  stood  stock-still  and 
watched  the  peculiar  antics  of  the  light.  It 
went  backward  and  forward  in  an  uncertain  sort 
of  way,  not  as  if  its  bearer  were  looking  for  any- 
thing, but  more  as  if  he  were  trying  to  find  his 
way  out  of  a  thicket  or  a  marsh.  But  there  were 
no  thickets  or  marshes  on  the  broad  level  road, 
and  even  the  underbrush  in  the  vacant  lots  was 
sparse  and  low.  Besides,  the  light  was  some- 
times full  on,  sometimes  shut  off  to  a  tiny  cres- 
cent, and  sometimes  hidden  altogether.  More- 
over, the  night  was  so  clear  that  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  blackness  that  enshrouded  whatever 
was  in  back  of  the  glare,  I  should  have  been 
able  to  see  the  figure  of  the  lantern. 

I  quickened  my  pace;  but  at  the  first  sound 
of  my  feet  on  the  hard  road  the  light  began  to 
dance  backward  and  forward  like  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp  in  a  fit;  and  when  I  got  to  the  corner  of  the 
road  that  turned  down  to  the  Newcomers'  house 
130 


and  shouted  "  hello ! "  after  it,  it  took  itself  out  of 
sight  up  the  road,  with  such  speed  that  I  had  no 
temptation  to  follow  it. 

When  I  came  in  front  of  the  Newcomers' 
house  I  stopped  in  astonishment,  and  mechani- 
cally pulled  my  watch  from  my  pocket  and  lit  a 
match  to  see  the  time.  It  was  fifteen  minutes 
past  eight,  but  not  one  light  peeped  from  the 
closed  shutters  of  the  comfortable  old-fashioned 
cottage.  A  hundred  yards  on  either  side  lights 
glowed  in  the  neighbors'  windows;  but  not  so 

137 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

much  as  a  glimmer  of  a  night-lamp  in  a  bed- 
room broke  the  blackness  of  the  Newcomers' 
house. 

I  knew  they  were  all  at  home,  for  Mrs. 
Newcomer  had  told  my  wife  they  would  be; 
so,  after  some  hesitation,  I  concluded  to  try  a 
ring  at  the  bell.  I  think  I  found  the  idea  that 
they  might  be  asleep  somewhat  galling  to  my 
spirit.  It  was  showing  too  frank  and  unaffected 
a  contempt  for  the  charms  of  suburban  life,  and 
I  resented  it.  I  pushed  the  button  in  the  door- 
post, and  heard  a  response  from  the  distant 
kitchen,  too  loud  and  clear  to  escape  the  notice 
of  any  waking  person.  Then  I  heard  a  scratch- 
ing sound  above  my  head,  and,  stepping  back 
off  the  porch,  I  saw  the  blinds  of  a  front  win- 
dow pushed  out  about  an  inch  and  a  half;  and 
by  the  faint  light  that  appeared  at  the  chink  I 
judged  that  some  one  was  holding  a  candle  far 
back  in  the  bed-room  hall.  Then  a  woman's 
voice,  husky  and  tremulous,  but  still  to  be  recog- 
nized as  Mrs.  Newcomer's,  whispered  with  intense 
agitation : 

"  Oh  !  what  is  it  ?  — Who  is  it  ?  —  Please  go 
away !  —  We  don't  want  anything !  —  I  '11  wake 
my  husband !  —  Mr.  Newcomer  will  see  you  in 
the  morning !  —  We  Ve  all  gone  to  bed !  —  Oh, 
dear ! " 

This  exclamation  was  caused  by  the  action 
of  a  gust  of  wind  which  blew  one  leaf  of  the 
blind  out  of  the  lady's  hand  and  revealed  that 
Mrs.  Newcomer  was  anything  but  accurate  in 
her  statements,  for  she  wore  a  very  pretty  and 
rather  elaborate  dress,  and,  as  the  blind  swung 
back,  a  piece  of  fancy  work  fell  at  my  feet. 


^    Gbe  IRewcomere.    ^ 

I  established  my  identity  and  stated  my 
errand,  and  was  welcomed  with  an  effusiveness 
such  as  no  stranger  had  ever  greeted  me  with 
before.  The  maid  in  the  hallway,  devoutly 
thanking  the  saints,  as  if  my  coming  had  saved 
the  house  from  an  attack  of  Apache  Indians, 
produced  a  lamp,  and  the  two  females  descended 
the  stairs  and  were  joined  in  the  hallway  by  some 
more  of  the  domestic  staff.  The  process  of  let- 
ting me  in  was  a  long  one.  Bolt  after  bolt  was 
withdrawn,  key  after  key  was  turned.  I  knew 
the  old  house  in  its  former  tenant's  time,  and 
remembered  that  an  iron  lock  with  a  brass  key 
was  its  only  equipment.  The  mighty  armament 
was  evidently  new;  but  at  last  the  door  was 
pulled  open,  or,  rather,  pulled  and  pushed,  for 
it  stuck  so  tight  in  the  frame  that  I  had  to 
put  my  shoulder  to  it  before  it  would  yield.  As 
it  went  back  a  gust  of  chokingly  warm  air  rushed 
out  into  my  face;  and  it  did  not  take  me  long  to 
discover  that  every  window  in  the  house,  from 
cellar  to  garret,  was  shut  tight,  although  several 
large  lamps  were  going  at  full  blaze  in  the  kitchen 
and  library,  where  blankets  had  been  hung  up  at 
the  windows  to  keep  the  light  in. 

Mrs.  Newcomer,  with  beads  of  perspiration 
standing  on  her  forehead,  cordially  invited  me 
in,  but  I  told  her  I  had  not  come  to  stay,  and 
had  only  meant  to  leave  my  map  at  the  door,  as 
I  had  another  pressing  engagement.  This,  how- 
ever, she  would  not  hear  of;  and  she  so  earnestly 
begged  me  to  remain,  at  least  until  Mr.  New- 
comer returned  from  the  Doctor's,  that  I  had  to 
consent.  Fortunately,  in  my  utter  astonishment, 
I  had  forgot  to  dispose  of  my  cigar,  and  Mrs, 


Newcomer,  observing  this,  suggested  that  I 
should  smoke  on  the  porch  while  she  sat  near 
the  doorway.  She  admitted  that  it  was  rather 
close  in  the  house,  but  said  of  course  she  did  n't 
dare  to  have  anything  open  when  Mr.  Newcomer 
was  not  within  doors.  So  I  sat  outside  and 
smoked,  my  hostess  sat  within  the  door  and 
talked,  and  from  the  servants  in  the  kitchen  I 
could  hear  fervent  ascriptions  of  thankfulness  for 
the  presence  of  the  "  good  jontlemin." 
140 


^    Gbe  IRewcomers.   -y- 

"  I  feel  quite  ashamed  of  myself  for  making 
you  stay  with  me,  Mr.  Sage,"  began  the  lady; 
"  but  I  know  you  would  n't  mind  —  if  you  knew 
how  nervous  we  all  are  —  over  these  dreadful 
nights  in  the  country.  I  suppose  you  've  got 
used  to  them  —  you  must  have,  because  you  've 
lived  here  so  long,  —  but  I  should  think  it  must 
have  required  a  great  deal  of  courage.  And  how 
you  get  around  at  night,  I  don't  see.  Why,  you 
have  n't  even  got  a  cane,  Mr.  Sage!  Last  night 
we  counted  five  electric  lights  that  were  out,  and 
to-night  they  Ve  only  just  lit  them  up ;  and  poor 
Mr.  Newcomer  has  to  go  to  the  doctor's  in  all 
this  dreadful  darkness  !  We  could  n't  remember 
whether  the  baby  had  to  have  his  pills  first  and 
the  powders  afterward,  or  the  other  way.  And 
Henry  —  that  is,  Mr.  Newcomer,  is  so  very  near- 
sighted that  he  's  just  as  likely  to  run  into  a 
tramp  as  not  —  and,  anyway,  they  tell  me  that 
the  night  air  is  full  of  malaria  germs,  and  that 
you  never  should  sleep  with  your  windows  open. 
You  don't  think  anything  could  have  happened  to 
Henry,  do  you,  Mr.  Sage  ?  I  am  sure  I  expected 
him  back  by  this  time.  If  you  '11  excuse  me  a 
minute  I  '11  go  up  to  the  corner  room  and  look 
down  the  road  through  the  opera  glass.  Oh !  you 
don't  know  what  a  relief  it  is  to  have  you  here." 

Henry  —  I  mean  Mr.  Newcomer  —  arrived 
at  last,  and  although  he  hailed  me  cordially  when 
his  wife  told  him  who  I  was,  I  noticed  that  he 
slipped  hastily  past  me,  and  went  with  his  wife 
into  a  little  reception  room  just  behind  my  back. 
Perhaps  he  supposed  that  I  would  think  he  was 
delivering  an  important  medical  message  to  his 
wife;  but  I  could  not  have  thought  that,  for  from 


Suburban  Sage,   -y 

where  1  sat  I  saw  him  take  off  a  light  overcoat, 
unwind  a  silk  muffler  from  his  neck,  and  dis- 
embarrass himself  of  a  heavy  stick,  a  tiny 
22-calibre  revolver,  and  a  dark-lantern. 

At  Mr.  Newcomer's  earnest  request,  I  braved 
the  trying  atmosphere  of  the  house  and  drank  a 
glass  of  tepid  beer  with  him.  It  was  a  costly 
glass  of  beer  for  Newcomer.  As  I  stepped  over 
his  door-sill  to  go  home  I  felt  the  boards  of  the 
porch  settle  under  my  feet  with  a  drop  of  an  inch 
and  a  half. 

"B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- 
r-r-r ! ! !  " 

The  loudest  electric  bell  that  I  ever  heard 
was  going  off  with  frightful  rapidity  and  violent 
persistence.  It  was  hardly  necessary  for  Mrs. 
Newcomer  to  explain  that  she  had  set  the  new 
burglar- alarm,  and  had  forgotten  to  warn  me;  and 
I  realized  her  feelings  when  Newcomer  admitted 
that  he  knew  everything  about  that  bell,  except 
how  to  stop  it.  Meanwhile  the  bell  continued  to 
perform  its  functions.  Newcomer  asked  me  if  I 
knew  anything  about  electricity.  I  was  glad  and 
proud  to  say  that  nobody  in  the  world  knew  so 
little  about  electricity  as  I  did.  I  went  home, 
leaving  Newcomer  doing  something  in  a  vague 
way  with  a  screw-driver.  I  strolled  slowly  home 
and  sat  on  my  porch.  An  hour  or  so  later,  my 
wife  asked  me  what  that  faint  tinkling  was  that 
she  had  heard  for  so  long.  I  told  her,  and  she 
seemed  mildly  amused. 


But  the  next  day  she  lured  me  down  to  a 
disused   tool  -  house,   at   the   end   of  the    garden, 

'49 


where  lay  an  accumulation  of  old  junk,  with  the 
rust  of  many  years  upon  it.  There  was  not  much 
left  of  it,  and  I  had  quite  forgotten  all  about  it, 
but  I  could  not  help  recognizing  some  coils  of 
insulated  wire,  several  gong-bells,  two  or  three 
patent  window  fastenings,  and  a  dark-lantern. 

143 


THE    FIRST   OF   IT. 


145 


THE    FIRST    OF    IT. 


HE  question  that  his  old  friends  of  the 
city    oftenest   ask    of   the    suburbanite 
in   the  course  of  his  first  year  is  this : 
"  Do  you  really   like  it,   living  out 
there  ?  " 

To  this,  if  he  is  unwise  —  it  being 
assumed  that  he  can  not  help  being  a 
little  bit  snobbish  —  he  will  reply  that  he 
despises  suburban  life;  that  he  only  takes 
to  it  for  the  sake  of  the  children,  and  that  it 
is  merely  a  temporary  expedient  in  the  interests 
of  sanitary  science.  For  this  little  indiscretion 
he  will  pay  dearly  later  on,  when  he  buys  his 
house  and  settles  down.  But  if  he  is  wise^he 
will  say  Yes  —  and  say  it  in  very  large  letters, 
too,  and  feign  an  appropriate  enthusiasm. 

Yet,  if  you  ask  me  whether  there  ever  was 
an  indurated  resident  of  a  metropolitan  city  who 
really  enjoyed  his  first  year  of  suburban  house- 
keeping, I  should  have  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not 
believe  it  could  be  truly  said  of  any  man  of 
the  sort. 

How  could  he  enjoy  it?  —  enjoy  the  new 
responsibilities  —  the  new  problems  —  a  struggle 
with  the  furnace  that  ends  only  when  the  strug- 
gle with  the  front  lawn  begins  —  the  new  con- 


ditions  of  butcher  and  baker  -  dom,  and  the 
strangeness  of  keeping  your  water  supply  in  a 
box  in  the  garret  ?  No  ;  certainly  he  does  not 
enjoy  these  things,  although  they  surely  occupy 
his  mind ;  nor  does  he  enjoy  the  breaking  up 
of  his  settled  ways  of  city  life  —  the  loss  of  his 
pleasant  stroll  uptown  from  the  office;  of  his 
half-hour's  smoke  at  the  club ;  of  his  careless 
ii  147 


^   Gbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

stroll  through  art-gallery  or  auction-room  ;  of 
his  luxurious  idle  hour  before  dinner,  and  of  his 
easy  transition  to  the  theatre  or  the  opera  after- 
ward. These  things  are  a  part  of  his  life,  and 
he  misses  them;  and  deep  in  his  heart  he  be- 
lieves that  he  always  will  miss  them  to  the  end 
of  the  chapter;  but,  after  all,  this  is  not  where 
the  shoe  pinches.  His  new  world  must  have 
joys  of  its  own,  even  though  it  denies  him  those 
of  the  old.  And,  after  all,  it  is  one  whose  im- 
portance he  has  calculated  exactly,  and  to  which 
he  has  thoroughly  made  up  his  mind.  No,  no; 
the  pinch  is  not  here.  He  could  readily  enough 
accommodate  his  old  foot  to  the  new  shoe  if  only 
—  his  old  friends  would  n't  step  on  it. 

But,  oh!  those  old  friends!  How  the  faces 
of  them  have  changed!  For  years  he  has  been 
familiar  with  their  kindly  jests  and  gibes  ;  and 
he  has  never  regarded  them  as  anything  worse 
than  pleasant  tributes  to  his  pleasant  individu- 
ality, and  he  laughs  as  heartily  as  they  do  when 
he  is  rallied  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  tastes  and 
habits  and  fancies.  Now,  however,  he  is  made 
to  understand  beyond  peradventure  that  he  has 
put  himself  out  of  the  pale  of  that  generous 
communion,  and  that  his  claims  to  delicate  con- 
sideration are  held  to  be  forfeit  unless  he  is  will- 
ing to  bow  himself  in  the  dust  and  humble  him- 
self before  the  righteous. 

At  first  he  is  only  surprised  and  puzzled  and 
pained  when  he  finds  the  jests  of  his  old  city 
companions  taking  on  a  tone  not  in  the  least 
suggestive  of  urban  courtesy.  It  is  more  in 
wonder  than  in  anger  that  he  perceives  the 
bitter,  resentful  undercurrent  of  the  humor  that 
148 


ffirst  ©f  ft.    ^ 

makes  only  a  clumsy  pretense  to  be  as  genial 
as  of  yore.  He  knows,  of  course,  that  he  must 
expect  some  jokes  on  his  desertion  to  the  ranks 
of  the  Hayseeds;  but  he  can  not  understand 
why,  for  the  first  time,  these  jests  that  come 
from  friendly  lip  should  be  edged  and  pointed 
to  cut  and  wound  ;  why  they  should  come  so 
strangely  close  to  the  verge  of  the  positively 
offensive ;  or  why  they  should  convey  a  sug- 
gestion of  contemptuously  indiscreet  familiarity. 
After  a  while  he  gets  a  light  on  the  subject, 
but  it  is  not  a  very  pleasant  light.  He  gets 
an  idea  of  the  double  crime  he  has  uncon- 
sciously committed  against  the  little  world  he 
has  just  left.  In  the  first  place,  he  has  taken, 
with  deliberation  and  foresight,  a  step  to  which 
his  old  comrades  know  that  they  all  may  be 
forced  sooner  or  later;  and  they  feel  toward 
him  as  the  other  passengers  would  naturally 
feel  toward  a  man  who  said  :  "  Oh,  well,  if 
nobody  really  wants  first  choice  of  berths,  I  '11 
take  the  extra  large  lower  one  in  the  middle 
section."  In  the  second  place  —  and  this  is  the 
real  galling,  maddening,  stinging  thing  that  he 
has  done — he  has  shown  them  all,  quite  un- 
consciously and  unintentionally,  but  all  the  more 
convincingly,  that  he  does  n't  think  it  worth 
while  to  sacrifice  to  their  gods  any  longer;  that 
he  has  made  his  own  estimate  of  the  game  that 
they  are  playing,  and  that  he  does  n't  think  it 
worth  the  amount  of  combustion  which  it  gets 
out  of  the  candle  of  human  vitality. 

And  yet  they  think  he  might  have  done 
it  a  little  longer,  just  as  they  are  doing  it,  bravely 
and  uncomplainingly.  He  might  have  figured  to 

I4Q 


^    tTbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

get  the  children  to  the  seaside,  one  after  another, 
and  he  might  have  managed  for  his  wife  a  week 
or  two  at  Narragansett,  and  for  himself  a  few 
days  on  somebody's  yacht.  With  a  small  new 
economy  here,  and  another  one  there,  and  a  bit 
of  self-sacrifice  of  this  point,  and  a  risk  skillfully 
evaded  at  that,  it  ought  to  have  been  possible 
for  him  to  remain  at  least  a  few  years  longer 
a  resident  of  the  city,  though  one  dwelling  sixty 
or  eighty  feet  above  its  soil,  and  to  enjoy  the 
blessed  favor  and  privilege  of  inquiring  super- 
ciliously of  the  suburbanite: 

"  What !      Yofl   live    in    the   country  ?     And 
do  you  really  like  it,  living  out  there  ?  " 


fjo 


V    Cbe  fftrst  ©f  fit,    V 

After  a  while  a  sort  of  resigned  pity  suc- 
ceeds to  resentment  in  the  comments  which  the 
suburbanite's  friends  make  upon  his  dark  and 
discreditable  life.  There  even  comes  a  time 
when  they  accept  presents  of  flowers  and  fruit 
and  early  vegetables  from  him  with  the  patron- 
izing kindness  and  curiosity  which  we  extend 
to  the  prisoner  who  carves  ingenious  knickknacks 
in  his  lonely  cell. 

Then  there  comes  a  time  when  they  begin 
to  ask  casual,  indifferent  questions  about  the 
price  of  lots  in  his  neighborhood;  the  sort  of 
society  he  has;  what  he  does  to  amuse  himself; 
and  what  it  costs  to  keep  a  horse  in  the  country. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  however,  that  it  never 
enters  the  innocent  mind  of  the  suburbanite  that 
these  questions  are  anything  but  a  desire  to  ob- 
tain general  information,  or  that  they  display  any 
intention  on  the  part  of  his  haughty  associates  to 
join  him  in  his  rural  walk  in  life. 

And  so  the  time  goes  on,  the  suburbanite 
settling  himself,  day  by  day,  more  comfortably  in 
the  ever-increasing  shadow  of  his  own  vine  and 
fig  tree;  but  always  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart, 
just  a  little  bit  pitying  himself;  until  — 

It  so  happens  that  early  in  June  Mrs. 
Shingleroof  takes  the  children  to  pay  a  visit 
to  her  family,  and  Mr.  Shingleroof  is  left  a 
bachelor  for  a  couple  of  weeks.  Mr.  Shingle- 
roof is  to  spend  the  term  of  his  bachelorhood 
in  a  New  York  hotel.  Mrs.  Shingleroof  has  sug- 
gested the  plan,  for  her  husband  may  not  soon 
again  have  such  an  opportunity  of  re-visiting  the 
glimpses  of  the  urban  moon  that  shone  so  bright- 
ly on  his  bachelor  vigils;  and  she  does  not  want 


to  feel  that  marriage  has  wholly  separated  her 
husband  from  his  old  friends. 

Shingleroof  has  just  seen  his  family  off  at 
the  Grand  Central,  and  is  wending  his  way  down- 
town when  he  meets  Brownstone.  He  has  not 
seen  much  of  Brownstone  within  the  last  three 
years;  for  while  Brownstone  is  a  very  good  fellow 
he  is  known  as  a  great  wit  of  the  clubs,  and  at 
one  time  he  was  so  confoundedly  sarcastic  upon 
a  certain  subject,  that  really,  —  you  know  — 

"Hello,  Shingleroof!"  is  Brownstone's  greet- 
ing, "  you  're  the  very  man  I  want  to  see.  I  want 
152 


y   Cbe  fftrst  <S>f  ft.    y 

to  ask  you  some  questions  about  that  place  you 
live  in,  and  I  want  you  to  make  some  inquiries 
there  for  me.  Are  you  going  out  there  to- 
night?" 

Shingleroof  explains,  and  Brownstone  has  a 
brilliant  idea.  Shingleroof  must  spend  a  week 
with  him,  and  he  a  week  with  Shingleroof.  The 
first  week  is  to  be  a  mad  revel  among  the  won- 
ders of  the  town;  the  second  week  is  to  be  one 
of  quiet  recuperation  and  exploration  in  suburban 
scenes.  "  We  '11  have  a  rattling  high  old  time," 
says  Brownstone;  "just  like  the  old  days,  and 
then  we  '11  go  out  to  your  place  and  loaf  it  off. 
You  are  in  for  a  holiday,  anyway,  and  I  can  get 
my  partner  to  run  the  office  for  a  few  days." 

The  rattling  good  time  rattles  less  than  they 
had  expected.  Three  or  four  nights  of  the  thea- 
tres and  music  halls  make  them  both  more  than 
willing  to  spend  a  quiet  evening  at  home  — 
Brownstone's  home  —  but  the  evening  is  so  quiet 
that  Shingleroof  goes  to  bed  at  half-past  nine 
o'clock  —  but  not  to  sleep,  for  the  roar  of  the 
city  breaks  his  slumbers.  In  the  day-time  he 
finds  Brownstone's  clubs  somewhat  too  prim  and 
poky.  He  has  lost  track  of  the  personalities. 
He  feels  out  of  place,  too,  among  the  pale,  pre- 
cise people,  he  with  his  ruddy  brown  face,  and 
his  clothes  that  are  just  the  same  as  theirs,  only 
they  are  n't.  One  stranger  takes  him  for  an 
African  explorer. 

On  Friday  night  they  see  their  last  show, 
and  go  out  of  town  on  the  midnight  train  to  see 
a  tennis  tournament  a.t  Shingleroof 's  Field  Club. 
And,  as  he  walks  up  the  broad,  silent  road, 
breathing  in  the  sweet  night  breeze  under  the 
153 


•^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

great   arching   elms,    Shingleroof  is  conscious  of 
a  new,  strange  and  glad  sensation. 


He  is  up  bright  and  early  the  next  morn- 
ing,  happy  in  the  sunlight,  the  whispering  trees, 
the  wind  blowing  through  his  many  windows ; 
happy  in  the  songs  of  birds;  happy  even  in  pick- 
ing out  the  voices  of  individual  dogs  from  among 
the  great  and  tireless  orchestra  that  barks  and 
yelps  and  bays  all  around  him.  He  gets  into 
his  flannels  and  goes  downstairs  and  shakes 
hands  with  everybody  in  the  house,  like  a 
patriarch  in  old  days  coming  home  from  a  jour- 
ney. He  hears  the  homely  news  of  the  town 
—  who  is  sick,  and  who  has  got  well ;  how  the 
water  is  n't  roily  any  more,  and  what  Mr.  Dog- 
berry said  about  the  sick  terrier.  He  and  his 
Man  (or  nearly  so)  inspect  every  corner  of  his 
small  domain,  and  look  his  seventeen -year -old 
horse  over  as  though  he  were  a  probable  winner 
of  the  Suburban.  In  his  trim  garden  he  rejoices 
in  his  radishes  and  is  content  with  his  corn.  He 
strolls  out  on  the  highway  and  receives  a  cheery 
greeting  from  every  passer-by;  from  the  easy- 
going townspeople  to  the  brisk  commuters;  from 
the  butcher  in  his  snowy-hued  wagon,  and  the 
doctor  in  his  rusty  gig.  The  boy  with  the  milk 
stops  to  inform  him  that  "  We  waxed  de  Wood- 
stocks,  and  I  swiped  t'ree  ball  off  of  dem."  The 
young  tennis  enthusiasts,  coming  back  from 
before-breakfast  practice,  cross  the  street  to  tell 
him  of  the  chances  of  the  game.  Before  he  has 
been  out  ten  minutes  he  has  been  asked  to  score 
154 


for  a  ball  match,  referee  in  the  tennis  finals,  sub- 
scribe to  the  fund  for  a  new  church  organ,  and 
buy  three  tickets  to  the  picnic  of  the  Friendly 
Sons  of  Abyssinians.  He  feels  quite  at  home. 

Then  he  looks  up  and  sees  Brownstone 
standing  by  him.  Brownstone  in  patent-leather 
shoes,  pearl-gray  trousers,  black  cutaway  coat, 
high  -  collared  shirt,  and,  for  some  mysterious 


-y   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.   ^ 

reason,  in  a  silk  hat.  He,  too,  has  been  out 
for  a  walk,  and  he  has  got  into  the  only  patch 
of  underbrush  within  a  mile.  Clinging  green 
mementos  of  his  trip  decorate  him  from  head 
to  foot.  He  feels  that  Brownstone  is  not  doing 
I  him  credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  young  tennis 
players,  but  he  is  too  happy  to  be  cross,  and 
he  inquires  if  his  guest  has  had  a  good  night. 

"  Ye-es,"  replies  Brownstone,  doubtfully ; 
"  that  is,  those  wretched  dogs  and  birds  of 
yours  kept  me  awake  a  good  deal  of  the  night. 
I  say,  what  will  take  grass  stains  out  of  my 
trousers,  and  is  this  prickly  stuff  here  what  you 
call  poison  ivy?" 

Brownstone  will  go  to  town  on  Monday 
morning  just  to  see  if  his  partner  is  doing  all 
right,  and  he  will  tell  his  host  that  he  will  surely 
be  back  that  evening  unless  pressing  business 
detains  him.  Shingleroof  knows  that  pressing 
business  will  detain  him,  but  he  cares  not  a 
cent.  He  can  get  along  without  Brownstone's 
company,  even  though  his  wife  and  children  be 
absent;  he  is  at  home,  —  not  at  Brownstone's 
home,  —  at  Shingleroof 's  home. 

And  that  makes  all  the  difference. 


THE    SPORTING    SCHEME. 


A57 


THE    SPORTING    SCHEME. 


HE  train  had  been  flagged  at  a  little 
station  in  New  Jersey,  and  I  looked 
out  the  window  to  see  if  any 
passengers  were  likely  to  come 
aboard,  for  I  was  getting  lonely  in 
the  great  empty  smoking-car.  It 
was  a  gloomy  day,  too  dark  to  read 
with  comfort,  and  a  fine,  drizzling 
rain  was  beginning  to  fall. 
The  sight  of  the  company  on  the  platform 
at  once  awakened  my  interest.  They  had  just 
crossed  over  from  a  little  real  estate  office  which 
stood  across  the  way  from  the  station,  and  they 
formed  a  curious  and  striking  collection  of  indi- 
viduals. One  was  a  sour,  saturnine,  middle-aged 
man,  who  carried  a  dinner-pail.  He  was  shaking 
his  head  obdurately  in  negative  answer  to  what 
were  evidently  persistent  pleadings  on  the  part 
of  another  man,  a  small,  spry  person,  cheaply 
clothed,  who  looked  as  if  he  might  be  a  sewing- 
machine  agent  or  the  "  advance "  of  a  circus. 
The  other  six  men  were  startlingly  different  in 
appearance  from  the  other  two  talkers.  They 
were  all  large,  burly  men,  with  rosy  cheeks, 
close-cropped  hair,  a  well-groomed  appearance 
generally,  and  clothes  that  were  at  once  ex- 


"V    Gbe  Sporting  Scbeme.    ^ 

pensive,  English  and  loud.  Two  wore  riding- 
breeches,  one  under  a  great  white  box-coat,  the 
other  with  a  covert-coat.  Another  was  in  the 
"pink"  of  an  English  fox-hunter;  and  the  fourth 
wore  a  tweed  suit  with  checkerboard  stockings, 
baggy  knee-breeches,  and  a  cap.  This  man  car- 
ried a  golf  stick.  The  other  two  men,  although 
they  belonged  to  the  same  general  type,  wore 
coachmen's  liveries.  Each  of  the  six  carried  a 
heavy  black  rubber  overcoat  on  his  arm.  The 
big  men  accompanied  the  two  others  in  silence. 

My  window  was  open,  and  I  could  hear  the 
conversation  as  they  approached. 

"You  won't  do  it,  then?"  the  little  man  was 
saying ;  "  not  even  if  I  find  the  horses  ?  Well, 
all  right;  just  as  you  say;  but  I  tell  you,  man, 
you  are  losing  the  chance  of  your  life  !  " 

The  man  with  the  tin-pail  shook  his  head 
and  went  away,  and  the  little  man  suddenly 
turned  upon  his  companions,  full  of  the  rage  of 
disappointment. 


^    Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

"  Climb  on  there,  you  tarriers ! "  he  said, 
addressing  the  elegant  group  with  every  mani- 
festation of  disrespect.  "  It  's  your  fool  mugs 
that  hoodoo  the  business.  Get  aboard,  you 
damn  micks !  You  ain't  worth  your  feed  !  " 

And  he  drove  them  before  him  into  the 
smoking-car. 

"  Get  up  there,  you  potato-peelers  ! "  he 
said.  "  Get  up  to  the  further  end  of  the  car. 
I  won't  sit  with  you.  I  am  sick  of  you.  And 
put  on  your  coats,  you  yahoos.  I  don't  care 
if  it  is  hot;  I  ain't  going  to  let  you  spoil  those 
clothes." 

He  had  sunk  down  into  a  seat  across  the 
aisle  before  he  perceived  me  and  caught  my  won- 
dering eye.  At  once  he  crossed  over. 

"  Sounds  kinder  queer,  does  n't  it?"  he  said. 
"  Well,  just  be  so  good  as  not  to  give  it  away, 
and  I  '11  explain. 

He  produced  a  business  card  and  handed  it 
to  me.  It  read  : 


I.   LEGGET, 

SPORT  BOOMER, 

Refers  to  every  Real  Estate  Dealer  in  New  Jersey. 


"  Don't  catch  on  ? "  he  inquired.  "  Well, 
it  's  a  pretty  original  scheme  of  my  own.  It 
did  n't  work  at  that  place,  and  I  was  a  fool 
to  bother  with  a  real  estate  agent  who  would 
carry  his  dinner  in  a  can.  But,  you  see,  that  's 

ibo 


^   £be  Sporting  Scbcme.    "V 

a  religious  community.  All  towns  in  New  Jersey 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes  —  religious  and 
sporting.  Now,  my  business  is  booming  sport 
towns.  Want  to  see  how  I  do  it  ?  Well,  you 
wait  until  I  get  two  stations  further  on,  where 
I  drop  this  gang  to  relieve  another  one.  It  's  a 
junction,  that  station  is,  and  we  '11  be  just  in  time 
for  a  train  from  New  York  on  the  other  branch. 
You  '11  see  my  boys  work  a  train,  and  you  '11  see 
how  my  scheme  can  build  up  a  community. 
Here,  I  've  got  to  give  them  some  orders!" 

Going  up  to  the  other  end  of  the  car,  he 
talked  earnestly  for  a  long  time  to  the  six  big 
men,  who  listened  with  awe  on  their  faces.  I 
caught  his  closing  words: 

"  Now,  behave  yourselves  for  once,  you 
chumps,  and  show  the  gentleman  how  the  trick 
's  done,  and  you  shall  have  a  can  of  beer  when 
you  get  paid  off." 

"  Yis,  sorr,"  said  the  man  in  the  covert 
coat ;  "  we  will,  sorr ;  thank  you  kindly,  sorr." 

The  little  man  came  back  to  me  just  as 
the  second  station  hove  in  sight.  This  was  a 
very  different  place  from  the  desolate  domain  of 
the  agent  with  the  tin-can.  Through  the  trees 
in  every  direction  I  could  see  the  light  wood  of 
unfinished  houses.  New  paint  shone  on  a  score 
of  commodious  villas.  There  was  also  a  real 
estate  office  near  the  station,  but  it  was  a  neat 
and  attractive  structure,  and  a  portly,  well  -  fed 
gentleman  stood  in  the  doorway. 

"  Drill,  ye  tarriers  !  "  shouted  the  little  man 
to  the  big  ones.  "  Hustle  over  to  the  other  plat- 
form. There  's  Mickey's  gang  over  there.  Tell 
Mickey  to  drill  them  with  you  till  the  New  York 

ibr 


-y-    tTbe  Suburban  Sa0e.    ^ 

train   is   gone.      They  '11  have  plenty  of  time  left 
to  get  aboard  here." 

As  the  men  hurried  across  the  platform  they 
were  met  by  another  group  similar  in  appearance, 
several  of  whom  led  horses.  One  had  a  horse 
of  some  blood  drawing  a  dog-cart.  One  of  the 
footmen  immediately  took  his  station  at  the  head 
of  this  animal,  while  the  other  received  from  the 
agent  a  dressing  -  suit  -  case  and  a  leather  gun- 
case,  which  he  held,  one  in  each  hand,  standing 
erectly  in  the  station  door.  Four  of  the  mag- 
nificent gentlemen  then  mounted  the  horses,  with 
considerable  difficulty  —  in  fact,  they  had  to  be 
boosted  up  by  their  companions.  The  others 
assumed  much  easier  attitudes  upon  their  own 
feet.  One  or  two  lit  cigars.  The  man  in  the 
checkerboard  smoked  a  brierwood  pipe.  The 
agent  distributed  hunting-crops  among  them,  and 
a  small  boy  came  out  with  a  case  of  gleeks  and 
teeing  irons  and  putters,  and  the  rest  of  them, 
and  stood  behind  the  checkerboards  exactly  like 


V   Gbe  Sporting  Scbeme.    ^ 

a  Scotch  or  English  caddie.  All  maintained  ab- 
solute silence. 

It  was  on  this  ravishing  spectacle  of  sport 
and  fashion  that  the  New  York  train  drew  up. 
Out  came  a  group  of  seekers  of  suburban  homes. 
They  were  probably  mostly  city  people ;  but  when 
they  saw  that  display  of  sporting  style  they  stared 
about  them  like  a  lot  of  hayseeds  on  Broadway. 
Before  we  started  I  saw  the  whole  group  safely 
herded  into  the  real  estate  office.  Then  the  little 
man  brought  his  second  shift  of  men  back  into 
the  car. 

"There!"  said  he;  "that  catches  them  every 
time.  There  were  n't  ten  houses  in  that  town  six 
months  ago.  I  did  it  —  every  bit  of  it." 

"  But  don't  they  discover  the  imposition  after 
a  while?"  I  inquired.  "Surely  your  new  settlers 
must  some  time  find  out  that  these  decoy-ducks 
of  yours  don't  live  in  the  town." 

"  There  is  no  imposition,  my  dear  sir ! " 
rejoined  the  little  man,  less  warmly.  "The  people 
who  are  attracted  by  that  sort  of  thing  are  every 
bit  as  bad  fake-sports  as  my  bog-trotters  here. 
These  poor  fellows  of  mine  are  honest  laboring 
men  out  of  employment.  They  do  this  thing  for 
their  board  and  lodging  —  you  see  I  feed  them 
well  —  and  they  're  a  good  deal  better  men  than 
most  of  the  dudes  who  think  they  can't  live  with- 
out white  boxcoats  and  balloon  riding-breeches. 

"Of  course,"  he  resumed,  after  a  moment  of 
reflection,  "it  don't  do  to  work  a  town  too  long. 
There  have  been  revulsions  of  feeling,  and  my 
tarriers  have  had  the  hose  played  on  them.  But, 
you  see,  it  's  the  regular  secret  society  business. 
The  people  who  are  caught  want  to  catch  others. 

12  163 


Suburban  Sa0e. 


I  've  known  them  to  go  out  in  their  own  sport 
clothes  and  drill  with  my  boys  when  the  express 
trains  came  in.  Oh,  man,  you  don't  understand 
the  real  estate  business  !  " 

Mr.  Legget  sank  into  a  deep  reverie  on  the 
greatness  of  his  scheme,  from  which  he  awoke 
with  a  sudden  start. 

"  Here,"  said  he,  "  I  'in  forgetting  myself. 
I  've  got  to  inspect  these  men  before  I  go  to 
Jersey  City.  I  have  got  to  have  them  out  on 
two  more  of  these  infernal  criss-cross  New  Jer- 
sey railroads  before  dark.  Here,  you  flannel- 
mouths,  stand  up  in  the  aisle  and  be  inspected. 
Larry  Dooley.  you  wear  your  pants  too  hard. 
If  you  ain't  more  careful  of  them  I  '11  lay  you 
off  for  a  week.  Maloney,  your  red-flannel  shirt 
is  showing  over  your  shirt  -  collar.  Corrigan,  I 


164 


<y    Cbe  Sporting  Scbeme.    ^ 

saw  you  at  the  station  without  gloves.  I  Ve  a 
mind  to  stop  your  supper  for  that.  Do  you 
think  those  red  mud-scoops  of  yours  look  like 
Tuxedo  or  the  Meadowbrook  Hunt?  McCarty, 
if  you  strike  any  more  matches  on  yourself  you 
'11  hear  from  me.  Owney  Muldoon,  my  friend, 
the  next  time  you  hold  on  to  a  horse's  ears  to 
keep  yourself  steady,  you  '11  get  the  sack.  Now, 
hustle  over  to  the  Greenwood  Lake  branch,  every 
mother's  son  of  you,  and  take  the  tobacco  out  of 
your  mouths  before  you  get  into  the  train." 

"  Say,"  said  Mr.  Legget  to  me,  turning  back 
after  we  had  parted ;  "  you  don't  know  any  lady- 
like young  women  in  reduced  circumstances,  do 
you,  who  'd  do  the  tailor-made  girl  for  me  ?  I  'd 
pay  them  well,  and  they  'd  beat  the  Micks  out  of 
sight." 

I  said  «  No ! "  and  he  chased  his  four  sport- 
ing swells  and  their  footmen  into  another  smok- 
ing-car. 


THE    EVOLUTION    OF    THE 
SUBURBANITE. 


,67 


THE     EVOLUTION     OF     THE 
SUBURBANITE. 


A   DRAMATIC  SKETCH  IN  FIVE  TABLEAUX. 


DRAMATIS     PERSONS. 

MR.  SUBURBANITE A  married  New  Yorker 

of  moderate  means,  lately 
settled  in  Conunutah- 
ville,  N.  J. 

MR.  CITT His  friend,  an  unmarried 

New  Yorker  of  moderate 
means. 

MR.  NEXT Friend  of  Mr.  Citt.  Also 

an  unmarried  New  York- 
er of  moderate  means. 

TIME:     The  Present. 

TABLEAU  I.  SCENE:  A  Pleasant  Suburban 
Road.  Neat  Cottage  in  fore- 
ground, with  front  lawn.  View 
of  hills,  etc.,  in  distance. 

MR.   SUBURBANITE  discovered,  escorting  MR. 
CITT  to  the  Sunday  afternoon   train.      The  latter 

it>8 


^    Cbe  ^Evolution  of  tbe  Suburbanite.    ^ 

carries  a  hand-bag.      He  has  been  spending  the  day 
at  Commutahville. 

MR.  CITT  (with  an  expression  of  kindly 
superiority,  gazing  carelessly  and  superciliously 
about  him).  —  Nice  sort  of  little  place  you  have 
here,  Subby.  I  suppose  you  '11  get  to  like  it 
pretty  well,  too,  after  a  while.  Let's  see,  you 
used  to  say  that  you  rather  liked  country  life, 
did  n't  you?  Seems  kind  of  funny  to  see  you  in 
a  place  like  this,  though.  I  should  think  you  'd 
find  it  slow  a  good  deal  of  the  time.  /  should, 
I  know.  However,  as  you  say,  the  children  — 
you  know  best,  of  course,  what  suits  you  —  but 
I  should  think  —  Oh !  is  that  the  train  ?  (Shak- 
ing hands  warmly  and  hurriedly.)  Well,  good- 
by ;  I  've  had  a  charming  day !  Tell  Mrs.  Sub- 
urbanite how  much  I  've  enjoyed  it!  So  long! 

(Exit,    running.) 


TABLEAU  II.  SCENE:  Same  Pleasant  Sub- 
urban Road.  Same  neat  Cottage 
in  foreground,  with  same  front 
lawn.  Same  view  of  hills,  etc.,  in 
distance. 

MR.  SUBURBANITE  discovered,  accompanying 
MR.  CITT  to  the  Monday  morning  train.  MR.  CITT 
still  carries  a  hand-bag,  but  his  demeanor  is  less 
proud  and  more  genial.  He  is  thinking  of  a  girl 
he  knows  in  town,  and  wishing  that  MRS.  SUB- 
URBANITE knew  her,  and  would  ask  her  out. 


MR.  CITT  (gazing  about  him,  approvingly ). — 
Really,  you  are  very  nicely  settled  here,  Subby, 
old  man.  Seems  to  have  done  you  good,  too. 
Gad  !  I  never  knew  you  were  such  a  walker. 
Say,  these  macadam  roads  must  be  elegant  for 
tandem  bicycles,  must  n't  they  ?  I  s'pose  you 
really  like  it  out  here,  don't  you  ?  Of  course 
you  do,  or  you  would  n't  stay.  Well,  if  you  do 
want  to  live  in  the  country,  I  suppose  you  could 
n't  have  chosen  a  better  place,  in  its  way.  That 
little  view  down  there  (pointing),  that  's  really 
very  pretty  a  morning  like  this,  don't  you  know. 
Spring  makes  everything  look  pretty,  though,  I 
suppose. 

(Exeunt,  strolling,  to  catch  the  train  by  one- 
eighth-of-a-second.) 


TABLEAU  III.  SCENE:  Just  the  same 
Pleasant  Suburban  Road.  Just 
the  same  neat  Cottage  in  fore- 
ground, with  just  the  same  front 
lawn.  Just  the  same  view  of 
hills,  etc.,  in  distance. 


•y-    £be  Evolution  of  tbc  Suburbanite.    -^ 

MR.  SUBURBANITE  discovered,  accompanying 
MR.  CITT  to  the  Wednesday  morning  train.  MR. 
CITT  carries  no  hand-bag.  He  has  got  to  the 
point  of  leaving  his  things  at  the  house,  and  run- 
ning out  when  he  feels  like  it.  He  is  engaged 
to  the  girl  in  New  York;  and  he  looks  around 
him  with  balmy  ecstasy  bubbling  in  his  heart  and 
beaming  out  of  his  eyes. 

MR.  CITT.  —  No,  old  man;  I  'm  sorry,  but 
I  shan't  be  out  again  to-night.  Nellie  will  be  at 
Narragansett  at  the  end  of  the  week,  and  I  must 
hurry  up  and  get  some  work  done  if  I  want  to  get 
off  and  see  her.  If  it  was  n't  for  that,  I  'd  love 
to  stay.  Really,  I  don't  believe  you  fellows  who 
live  out  here  all  the  time  quite  appreciate  what 
a  good  time  you  have.  Why,  I  met  Lugsby  in 
town  the  other  day.  and  he  was  perfectly  enthusi- 
astic over  his  visit  here.  Said  he  had  n't  enjoyed 
himself  so  much  in  —  he  did  n't  know  when.  Oh! 
there  's  no  doubt  about  it,  you  Ve  got  a  most 
delightful,  rational  way  of  life.  Of  course  Nellie 
and  I  would  n't  care  to  live  anywhere  except  in 
New  York ;  but  I  suppose  there  's  no  doubt  about 
it,  you  fellows  out  here  in  the  country  get  more 
in  return  for  your  money  than  we  do  in  the  city. 
Now  what,  for  instance,  did  you  say  that  little 
gray  house  over  there  on  the  hill  rented  for? 
Oh,  yes;  five  hundred  dollars.  Cheap,  is  n't  it, 
for  such  a  location  ?  And  then  that  view  !  Why, 
Lugsby  —  you  know  how  undemonstrative  he  is  ? 
—  he  was  quite  enthusiastic  over  that  view.  He 
said  there  was  something  Swiss  about  it. 

(Exeunt  MR.  Cm,  talking  steadily.) 


171 


£be  Suburban  Sacje. 


.TABLEAU  IV.  SCENE:  Same  identical  Sub- 
urban Road.  Same  identical  neat 
Cottage  in  foreground,  with  same 
identical  front  lawn.  Same  iden- 
tical view  of  hills,  etc.,  in  distance. 

MR.  SUBURBANITE  discovered,  escorting  MR. 
CITT  to  last  Sunday  afternoon  train.  MR.  CITT'S 
bearing  is  no  longer  either  proud  or  exultant  j 
but  humble,  grateful  and  anxious.  He  is  married 
and  is  the  father  of  one  child,  aged  at  the  present 
moment  21  days,  4  hours  and  56  minutes.  He 
wears  an  ulster,  and  he  grasps  his  friend's  hand 
with  effusive  warmth  at  parting. 

MR.   CITT.  —  Well,   good-by  old  man.    You 
've  been  awfully  kind  to  take  so  much 
trouble.    I  feel  as  if  I  'd  been  con- 
foundedly selfish,  don't  you  know, 
taking  up  your  Sunday  in  drag- 
ging  you   all   over   those   cold 
houses;   but,  really,  I  should 
n't  know    what    to    do   if  it 
was    n't    for    your   advice. 
No ;     I    positively    can't 
stay    to    dinner  —   Mrs. 
Suburbanite    is    just     as 
good    as   she   can   be  — 
but    I    must    get   back    to 
the  flat.     The  doctor  says 
Nellie  can  sit  up  to  dinner 

to-day,  if  she  's  had  a  good  day,  and  I  know  the 
poor  child  has  simply  set  her  heart  on  it.  Your 
wife  understands,  I  am  sure.  I  can't  tell  you 
how  relieved  I  shall  be  when  I  get  Nellie  and 
172 


^    Gbe  Evolution  of  tbe  Suburbanite.    V 

the  baby  out  here  in  the  fresh  air  and  quiet !    She 

can't  help   getting   back  her  strength  here;    don't 

you  think  so  ?    And  she  '11  enjoy  it 

so  !    And  that  view !     Think  of 

having  that  view  to  look  at 

instead    of  that   miserable 

dark  city  street!    Why, 

every  time  I  see  that 

view,  it  reminds  me 

of  Switzerland !   And 

you  '11  tell  the  agent 

that    I    '11    take    the 

Dusenberry     cottage 

—  the    gray    one,    I 
mean,    not    the    other 

—  you   know.      Good-by,   aga;n,   and   thank   you 
.ever  so   much.      Nellie   will  be  simply  delighted 
when  I  tell  her. 

(Exit,  computing  interest.) 


TABLEAU  V.  SCENE:  Same  Pleasant  Sub- 
urban Road.  TWO  Neat  Cottages 
in  foreground,  with  TWO  front 
lawns.  Same  view  of  same  hills, 
etc.,  in  same  distance. 

MR.  CITT  discovered,  escorting  MR.  NEXT  to 
the  Sunday  afternoon  tram.  The  latter  carries  a 
hand-bag.  He  has  been  spending  the  day  in  Com- 
mutahville  with  his  old  friend  and  former  bachelor 
companion,  MR.  CITT,  late  of  New  York.  With 
an  expression  of  kindly  superiority  he  gazes  care- 
lessly and  superciliously  about  him. 

173 


y-   Gbe  Suburban  Sage.    ^ 

MR.  CITT  (with  'feverish  enthusiasm).  — 
Pretty  nice  now,  is  n't  it  ?  I  don't  believe 
there  's  another  place  like  this  within  twenty  — 
no,  sir,  within  forty  miles  of  New  York.  I  '11  tell 
you  what  it  is,  Next,  ray  boy,  what  you  want 
to  do  is  to  marry  a  nice  girl,  and  come  out  here 
and  settle  down  with  us.  It  's  the  only  real 
way  to  enjoy  life.  Now,  there  's  that  house  I 
had  before  I  built  my  present  one  —  the  Dusen- 
berry  cottage  up  there  on  the  hill  —  put  a  few 
hundred,  or  may  be  a  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  repairs  into  that  —  to  the  plumbing  and  that 
sort  of  thing  —  and  it  will  make  a  cottage  fit  for 
a  king.  And  that  view !  —  man  alive,  look  at 
that  view!  Could  you  imagine  you  were  within 
one  hour  of  New  York  ?  Why,  man,  it  's  Switzer- 
land, that  's  what  it  is !  It  's  Switzerland ! 
(Exeunt.  The  train  booms  in  the  distance.) 

SO  SPINS TO  END  IT  WITH  A  RHYME 

THAT  VENGEFUL  WHIRLIGIG  OF  TIME! 


174 


-MADE   IN    FRANCE." 

Under  the  title  of  "Made  in  France" 
H.  C.  Bunner  has  gathered  a  number  of 
short  stones,  all  founded  on  tales  by  De 
Maupassant.  Several  have  suffered  so  great 
a  sea  change,  however,  that  the  original 
writer,  if  he  were  alive,  would  not  recognize 
them.  In  these  about  all  that  Bunner  has 
borrowed  from  the  brilliant  Frenchman  is 
<vhat  he  calls  the  "ethical  situations."  Others 
bear  evident  traces  of  their  French  origin. 
Mr.  Bunner  explains  the  motive  of  his  novel 
scheme  in  these  words  : 

"  I  have  selected  a  few  ethical  situations  from  among 
the  brightest  of  Maupassant's  inventions,  and  have  tried 
to  reproduce  them,  not  as  translations,  but  as  English  or 
American  stories  based  on  a  Frenchman's  inspiration,  and 
I  have  done  this  with  the  sole  hope  of  making  that  in- 
spiration clear  to  people , who  will  not  or  can  not  read 
Maupassant  in  the  original.  If  through  the  new  climes, 
the  new  times,  the  new  changes,  the  new  worlds,  indeed, 
into  which  I  have  moved  his  people  and  their  adventures, 
you  catch  a  better  glimpse  of  the  best  fancies  of  M.  Guy 
de  Maupassant  than  you  can  get  through  the  misleading 
mechanism  of  a  literal  translation,  I  shall  be  glad,  indeed." 

There  is  no  question  of  his  success,  for 
nine  out  of  ten  of  his  readers  would  find  De 
Maupassant  less  amusing  than  Bunner.  The 
volume  is  very  cleverly  illustrated  by  Taylor. 

— San  Francisco  Chronicle. 
In  Boards,  $1.00.     In  Paper,  50  cents. 

All  Booksellers. 
By  Mail,  from  the  Publishers,  on  Receipt  of  Price. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


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LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-50m-12,'64(F772s4)458 


PAMPHLET  BINDER 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Stocl 


356441 


Bunner,    H.C. 

The   suburban   sage 


PS1202 
S8 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF   CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


